Professional Photo Ownership

[bicker]

Maybe two wrongs do not make a right

No "maybe" about it.

Regardless, there is nothing wrong with shrewdly negotiating exclusive contracts with school districts. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with pricing prints at whatever price will maximize profit. That's what capitalism is all about. Respect for the rule of law, including respecting copyrights, is what good citizenship is all about.

Having Wal-Mart take photos and then buying prints from them is a perfect way of expressing your dissatisfaction with the contract photographer.

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

No "maybe" about it.

Regardless, there is nothing wrong with shrewdly negotiating exclusive contracts with school districts. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with pricing prints at whatever price will maximize profit. That's what capitalism is all about. Respect for the rule of law, including respecting copyrights, is what good citizenship is all about.

Having Wal-Mart take photos and then buying prints from them is a perfect way of expressing your dissatisfaction with the contract photographer.

What you say is true but when we talk about what is right and wrong then why is it that they "shrewdly" negotiate and then deliver an inferior product do you think that is OKAY? Do you think it is okay to charge a class two years later for a mistake THEY made two years earlier?

I spoke incorrectly when I said it was 60 years it is MORE than 60 years and frankly this studio is a rip off. It is easy to speak about "good citizenship" but then why is the reverse not true? They do not give back to the community but take advantage because they are exclusive. I too had my photos taken by this studio as did my Mom (over 80) and w BOTH had retakes at another studio because of the qualityWe are talking of a span of over 60 years. It is like a monopoly not an exclusive contract. I guess when you talk about a moral standard i.e. "good citizenship" then I look to the spirit of the law not the letter of the law. While they are not in fact violating the letter they sure are violating the spirit. IMHO . Also you live in a city not far from me and I bet even YOU know who I am speaking about if you know photo studios. They are famous and not in a good way.

 

[bicker]

You claim that the product was "inferior" -- inferior than what? If the product wasn't what was promised, then that's easy: Return the product and get a refund. However, if the product wasn't what you expected, then (no offense intended) you have to take responsibility for your own expectations. Never expect anything more than you're explicitly promised.

I don't know what "mistake" you're referring to, but if someone makes a mistake, then they should take personal responsibility for the mistake, not expect anyone else to make up for their mistake for them.

I get that you don't like this photographer, and you're upset that they're still in business. However, there is still nothing wrong with pricing prints at whatever price will maximize profit.

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

You claim that the product was "inferior" -- inferior than what? If the product wasn't what was promised, then that's easy: Return the product and get a refund. However, if the product wasn't what you expected, then (no offense intended) you have to take responsibility for your own expectations. Never expect anything more than you're explicitly promised.

I don't know what "mistake" you're referring to, but if someone makes a mistake, then they should take personal responsibility for the mistake, not expect anyone else to make up for their mistake for them.

I get that you don't like this photographer, and you're upset that they're still in business. However, there is still nothing wrong with pricing prints at whatever price will maximize profit.

YOU cannot return it and if you want to make another pose they charge. Once you buy it you own it.

 

[BillSears]

Illegal yes but I don't feel it's unethical.

I would prefer that they charge per job or per photo. Not per print. There are many times when you have a photo that you can't get a new copy of from the photographer and it's illegal to get it copied. In those instances I have no problem doing whatever is needed to copy it myself.

I order plenty of prints when I place my original order. But when I decide a few years down the line that I need one more 8X10 I'll just get it made myself.

 

[Caradana]

I intentionally picked a photographer for my wedding who will give me a complete set of 3"x5" optimized proofs - every single picture taken, probably about 2000 pictures - plus discs with optimized high-res, and she will release all of her rights to the photos.

It's still costing me a fortune, but it'll be worth it to avoid the gouging and infuriation involved with copying photos.

 

[Beth76]

75 years after the death of the photographer.

I disagree completely. You're not taking money away from someone who deserves it when you roll through a stop sign. You are taking money away from someone who deserves it when you violate a photographer's copyright.

So, copying a photo say 50 years after the photog's death is taking money away him? And I never said the "crimes" are the same. Just the same degree of "crime". "Everybody does it. No one gets hurt."

 

[bicker]

Sorry but I see that as a rationalization, the kind that seems more common the further you get from the person who's rights are being violated.

Beyond that: There are many things that are immoral which aren't illegal, but there is nothing that is illegal which isn't immoral. Living in a society implicitly means agreement with that society's laws.

 

[BillSears]

There are many things that are immoral which aren't illegal, but there is nothing that is illegal which isn't immoral.

Moral and immoral shouldn't be based on laws but instead on personal beliefs. If you consider it immoral to oppress certain people then move to a country where it's legal to suppress others that doesn't change that you feel it's immoral.

Laws are different from county to county, state to state and country to country. But crossing a state line will not change what I feel is moral or immoral.

 

[bicker]

Moral and immoral shouldn't be based on laws but instead on personal beliefs.

I agree. Laws are simply the personal beliefs that the vast majority of a society agree on. They're the values that everyone in society is supposed to comply with. Personal beliefs should always be a superset of the laws of any place you decide to be.

 

[RachelEllen]

Sorry but I see that as a rationalization, the kind that seems more common the further you get from the person who's rights are being violated.

Beyond that: There are many things that are immoral which aren't illegal, but there is nothing that is illegal which isn't immoral. Living in a society implicitly means agreement with that society's laws.

Not to go too off track, but I completely disagree.

I am extrapoloating from your statement that things can be immoral without being illegal, that you believe that actions have a moral implication separate from their legality or illegality. Even if you believe that breaking a law, in and of itself, is immoral, you are simply adding additional moral complexity to an action. You are not negating the moral implications already present.

If what you are saying is that illegality is the ultimate moral trump card, I think you would be hard pressed to find much support. Most people would say protection of life (stealing bread to feed a starving child example) or freedom (slavery, for example) are greater moral imperatives than what is legal.

Even our legal system recognizes this, in a way. Things aren't simply legal or illegal. They have various degrees of punishment assocatited with them. The fact that double parking gets me a ticket and murder sends me to jail wasn't decided in a vaccuum. Both are wrong. One is 'wronger'

Finally, living in a society may imply agreement with the concept of 'lawfulness.' But that is very different from agreement with those laws.
In other words, I may follow laws I don't agree with in order to comply with my moral sense of lawfulness. But I may also, within the law, work to change those laws.

 

[Viking]

Neither will rolling through a stop sign. Speeding, though, I can see your point regarding.

No wonder you still have 40,000+ fatalities in traffic each year in the USA
Stop signs are usually set up with an intention!!

 

[RachelEllen]

I agree. Laws are simply the personal beliefs that the vast majority of a society agree on. They're the values that everyone in society is supposed to comply with. Personal beliefs should always be a superset of the laws of any place you decide to be.

While idealistic, perhaps, that also isn't very practical. 90% of people in this world don't have much a choice about where they can be. Plus, until I get to found RachelEllenania, I don't think the place exists where the laws conform precisely to my sense of morality. When there's a difference, I have to just decide if it's:

1) Such a trivial difference that it's not worth my trouble to work to change it and more important to be lawful. (example: blue laws)

2) An important enough difference that I should work to change the law

3) An imperative enough moral contradiction, that I must actively break the law until it is changed.

 

[annegal]

The cheapest package is 129.00 and it contains 1 8x10 and 2 5x 7's ...NO WALLET size which is what the seniors want. For those you need to pay the minimum which is the 199. package.

.

My gosh, that is Highway Robbery!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Unless he owns the negatives, then no he doesn't have the right to reprint it via any method.

The holder of the negatives is the holder of the copyright. The photographer can relinquish that copyright (in terms of reproduction--not credit) if they so choose to. Our wedding photographer did this by including negatives as part of the package.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

and for those who have NO choice---you can always take photos yourself and then there is no copyright dispute.

 

[Becky2005]

I worked at a photo lab. It is supposed to be strict about the pictures. I do know though that if they brought us the picture on a CD, we could print the picture then.

Even if the man did copy the picture himself and have it reduced...if it remotely looks like professional photo (since the prints came out on the photo side and we had to get them to hand to the customer), we were to ask for the original and look on the back, etc... We were not to release the picture.

It actually happened that our store got busted once (I wasn't working but was on the next shift), where the photographer was *THERE* in the background, had a person copy the photo and see if they got handed it. I don't know if the back of the photo had the professional stamp (sometimes they don't and that makes it 1,000x trickier).

ON THE OTHER HAND...we hired a professional photographer for my parents 60th birthday party (same one we had for our wedding and we really liked him), we got our proofs all 4x6 pictures...went to get re-orders and he just "poof" disappeared. I have no idea what happened (still kind of wonder), I had mailed him a check with the order for different size prints. The phone was disconnected, had to stop payment on the check after sending a certified letter that came back returned because no one picked it up from the post office, etc.. So, to this day the only pictures we have are the 4x6's proofs and I really don't know how we could go about getting his permission to make other size prints and he fell off the face of the Earth as far as I could tell. He used to do all the sports teams here too (he had been in business for years) -- so it was bizarre situation. I would not feel guilty for making copies of these pictures because I was more than willing to pay for the photographer to do it but how do you do that when they just vanish?

 

[bicker]

If what you are saying is that illegality is the ultimate moral trump card

"Ultimate"??? Gosh now. I wouldn't say anything like that.

Illegality does not itself make an action immoral. Rather, it is the common perspective of the immorality of the action that results in its illegality. Then, and only then, it carries the burden of added immorality to not only transgress the most basic minimum standards of society on the act's own merits, but also because as a member of the society you implicitly agree to comply with its laws.

And of course immorality is a moving target. What's immoral today can be perfectly fine twenty years from now, and what's perfectly fine now can be immoral twenty years from now. That's the magic of a progressive, vital , evolving society.

Most people would say protection of life (stealing bread to feed a starving child example) or freedom (slavery, for example) are greater moral imperatives than what is legal.

No one would ever assert that the law is the "greatest" moral imperative. I sure didn't. I asserted it was a moral imperative. There are others.

Saving one's self some money isn't one of those. Neither is getting something one wants.

Finally, living in a society may imply agreement with the concept of 'lawfulness.' But that is very different from agreement with those laws.

Absolutely. There are many laws I comply with that I would prefer not be laws. Agreement with the law plays no role in determining whether a moral person complies with them or not.

 

[bicker]

No wonder you still have 40,000+ fatalities in traffic each year in the USA
Stop signs are usually set up with an intention!!

Have you ever looked up how many traffic fatalities are due to rolling through stop signs? I think you would be hard-pressed to find one case. (Just out of curiousity, since I believe the term is an American colloquialism, and I know you're not American: Do you even know what "rolling through" a stop sign means? It does NOT mean the same thing as blowing through a stop sign.)

 

[disney1990]

I put this right up there with rolling through a stop sign or speeding. I know it's wrong but I still do it.

Rolling through a stop sign is my number one pet peeve. People are always complaining about people that reuse refillable mugs -- but people don't die from that. Several people in my neighborhood have been killed by people that couldn't take that extra second to come to a full stop and look for ongoing traffic. People are just in too much of a hurry these days!