Well the comments here terribly disappoint me. Clearly the photographer wants to be paid as a professional, just like anyone else here.
The author should not have included any monetary figure in the article as doing so brings down the wrath of a thousand pedants with pocket calculators proving he overcharges and overvalues his work. So many people here seem to think they somehow "got him" on some straw-man price-point that clearly does not exist.
Meanwhile, the figure he calculated clearly exists to make the point that creating such an image costs more to him than clicking Save As... did to you and he wants to be appropriately compensated in dollars.
The fact the comments here seem to lack the professional empathy to jump from "How do you make money? Charge for your webapp!" To "How do you make money? Charge for your photos!" really shows how myopic the community can be. Not everyone builds a career around trying to make social network v35.0
tl;dr Pay photographers for their work, like you pay any other professional.
edit: And for a real cherry on top, the blog post itself appears to be taken in whole from http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnmueller/6643032477/in/photo... I suppose John Mueller could have agreed to have his content republished but nothing indicates that to be the case and a skimming of the petapixel blog doesn't seem to include many guest contributors.
I think the comments are fine, because the entire premise of the blog post is wrong. He should be paid because his skill as a photographer is worth money, not because he paid for a lot of expensive equipment.
> Clearly the photographer wants to be paid as a professional
Then he has to work as a professional. "Professional landscape photographer" is an oxymoron. There is essentially no commercial market for landscape photography. For all practical purposes, there are an infinite number of sufficiently high-quality images available for free.
The only thing I'm formally qualified to do is sound engineering. The development of Digital Audio Workstation software and cheap microphones meant that by the time I left college, there weren't any recording studios left to hire me. I could say exactly the same thing as the OP about how much my studio equipment costs, about how long I spent learning my craft, but the simple fact is that there are too many studio engineers willing to work for free.
Landscape photography is a hobby, like sport or music. Some people are so exceptionally good at that they can make a living doing it, but everyone else has to suck it up, act like an adult and do something that people will actually pay for. John B. Mueller shoots weddings, I write software. He shoots landscapes for fun, I record music for fun, which is exactly why nobody will pay us to do it - thousands like us will do it for free.
The most interesting bit to me in his total is that he didn't put in any cost for his time, which I'm guessing would ordinarily be the lion's share of a task like this.
I don't know if he was just trying to establish the 'overhead' costs, or that at a minimum, discounting his time, that's what it cost him, but I'd like to see that number be higher, if anything.
This, to me, is the same argument I made recently regarding musicians, in the creation of music, the finished work isn't zero-cost. Ignoring the recording studio costs, media costs, distribution costs, there are other costs like instruments, instrument lessons where applicable, etc.
Even if you believe that you should be able to reproduce an artist's work free of charge (which I admit I often am conflicted on,) you have no right to take the work that it cost them money to produce for free because you aren't depriving them of anything.
> The fact the comments here seem to lack the professional empathy to jump from "How do you make money? Charge for your webapp!" To "How do you make money? Charge for your photos!" really shows how myopic the community can be.
I will point out that there is a reason HN advocates making money by developing web apps over creating binaries that are posted online for all to copy, with a shareware note attached. We have the exact same problem with copying. We just have learned to deal with the problem as best we can. Is there really nothing photographers can do on their own to mitigate the problem?
Adding to that, he's not saying he'll only license it for $6,000+, just not for free or for "credit" or exposure.
As for only charging for your expertise, use of equipment/software, and time are also things businesses legitimately charge for, so it's fair to factor those into your value as well. It may not be the best way to assess the worth of your work, but it is a part of it.
People will come up with cash for things they thing are worth paying for. A picture of a sunset has little commercial value, but custom photography (weddings, etc) do. The customer doesn't care about his overhead, especially if he doesn't know how to calculate it. Why should they? If you want them to pony up, selling something worth buying. Musicians have figured it out, why shouldn't he?
These are the same people who think all digital content should be free - music, movies, games, apps, etc. No matter how technically advanced our society becomes, one axiom will always remain true - there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
A webapp is run as a service. You're charging people for a service you provide. That makes it very hard to copy.
A photo isn't a service. It's a collection of bytes that is trivial to copy.
If you want to make money as a photographer, you need to structure it in a way that means it's hard to copy. But these days, anyone can take pro quality photos with minimal talent. If he's an exceptional photographer, he should be able to charge for his time when taking photos. But that's about it.
With the music industry, artists can move from selling CDs to doing more live tours. Not sure that's something photographers can really do.
The machinery needed to produce a ballpoint pen costs the best part of $10m. A ballpoint pen costs 20 cents.
Cameras are expensive. Photographs are almost worthless. Supply utterly outstrips demand, especially for shots like landscapes that have great appeal for amateur photographers but little commercial utility.
Ten years ago, you could name every paparazzo working in London. They were a small circle of time-served photogs who knew everyone, and whom everyone knew. There was an infrastructure of couriers and darkrooms to get images from film to press in time. They spent years cultivating relationships with celebrities, doormen and nightclub owners. Today, there are countless PJ students and teenagers hurtling around Soho on scooters. With a cheap DSLR and a smartphone, an image can be on the front page of dailymail.com in 20 minutes.
The new breed see their work as a more exciting alternative to working weekends in a shop. Most of them are happy to get a quarter of what images used to sell for. They shoot using the modern equivalent of "f/8 and be there" and need practically no technical skill. Rather than cultivating relationships and building sources, many of them rely on Twitter. Unlike the previous generation, many of them are happy to tip each other off and share information. It's now scarcely possible to make a proper living and most of the old-timers are shooting commercial work or weddings.
> It's now scarcely possible to make a proper living and most
> of the old-timers are shooting commercial work or weddings.
Strange you should say that, as we actually hired an ex photo-journalist to do our wedding photos as we didn't want any posed nonsense, just genuine photos of people as they naturally were. The photos that we received were amazing and we were really happy with the results.
I spoke to him on the day of the wedding and he gave me almost the exact same story you've just posted.
It seems to me that every industry that relies on technology gets seriously disrupted when the technology becomes cheap enough - printing, publishing, photography and I'm sure there are many more.
That's all fine, but then there's no excuse for a publication to use a specific photo without the photographer's permission and without payment. If the photographer wants to charge $6.6K for that photo, and it's not worth $6.6K to you because you can get a Creative Commons one for free that's almost as good, then use the CC one.
Actually, even this is less true than it used to be—hence your comment, "With a cheap DSLR and a smartphone [. . .]" You can find stuff the pros were using a few years ago for a fraction of what they paid; a used Canon 5D full frame camera goes for under $1,000 these days (and it'll probably be less when the 5d Mark III hits), and older Rebels like the XTi can be had for ~300. I'm sure things are similar on the Nikon / Sony / etc. side, although I'm less familiar.
Cheap cameras are yielding all kinds of interesting social (cops being unhappy at having their once-deniable brutality filmed, "sexting") and economic (like your paparazzo) effects.
(Not entirely relevant derail: it would be easy to get started in plastic ballpoint pen manufacturing for 0.5% of your stated figure (just google it), though no doubt you could actually spend $10m).
"""Cameras are expensive. Photographs are almost worthless. Supply utterly outstrips demand, especially for shots like landscapes that have great appeal for amateur photographers but little commercial utility."""
Really? Then the photographer could say: if that's so, go use ANOTHER picture, because I don't fu*n supply mine.
You can't have it both ways, i.e the picture is worthless AND I still insist on using it.
> * As someone mentioned, THIS single photo didn’t cost me $6,612, but if you wanted to create it, from scratch, that is what is involved. So I consider it the replacement value if it’s stolen, or how much my lawyer will send you a bill for if it’s found being used without my permission.*
I hope he's never pirated a film or he could owe the studio millions and millions of dollars.
He should be arguing that it is expensive to take photos, and that any sales of them need to add up to cover initial and future costs. He should also be arguing that they are paying not just for the expense of taking it, but for his skill and time.
By arguing that one photo is worth that much, he is doing neither and looks like a moron.
I wonder why he doesn't add the cost of his car, in which he traveled to and from location, and the cost of building the road, and his home, and his entire life up to this point, and what it cost humanity to invent photography in the first place.
I get his point, of course, and (kind of) agree with him, but his argument is weak.
While I agree in part with your argument, using words like nonsense' and 'moron' somewhat let it down.
He didn't argue that that was the cost of viewing his photograph, he argued that his is what he would be looking for if you used it for commercial gain without permission.
Some photographs do sell for millions of dollars; many news photographs sell for thousands despite the photographer having no skill and having just been in the right place at the right time.
Do you actually now how much a magazine pays to use a single photograph?
I don't think he said that $6,612 is the cost of licensing its photo. He said he considers $6,612 the "replacement value", should someone publish it in a magazine without licensing first. So it's more akin to distributing for profit a movie you don't own any rights too.
I don't see why he would use this value as a basis for damages incurred though, since even someone publishing his photo without licensing it, hasn't taken (stolen) the photo from him. "Replacement value" has no meaning in this digital context.
In my opinion, there's no relation whatsoever between the cost of taking the photo and the damages he should seek. I think the damages should be correlated with the licensing value of the photo, majored appropriately for not acquiring licensing prior to using it.
The photographer, John Mueller, is absolutely amazing and deserves to be paid for the art he produces. See his work here: http://www.johnbmueller.com
Regarding the value of the photo, I highly doubt he believes a single photo is worth $6,612. He is merely trying to explain that he should be paid for his work, and he has. Arguing that it is expensive to take photos wouldn't have gotten your attention. This got your attention. He won.
Edit: I have absolutely no affiliation with Mueller nor have I heard of him prior to this article, but was bothered by the negative and deliberately ignorant comments posted here. Very unlike Hacker News...
I don't see anyone here arguing he should not be paid for his work, that would be a preposterous position to take and I am not sure where you are reading this. The problem I have with his math logic is that it could actually hurt genuine arguments against copyright infringement from pro photographers. A better argument would be to disregard this bizarro math entirely and instead justify the photo's worth from his undeniable skill, talent and artistic merit. He could say the photo is worth $20,000 instead of using illogical reasoning.
"Deserves" to be paid? That seems a little counter-free-market. IF he produces a photo that someone wants or thinks they can use, THEN he can charge what the market will bear.
"Deserves to be paid". Humbug. That's the beginnings of an aristocracy that "deserve" to rule.
The replacement value is actually much more than that. You could take that same equipment and shoot your entire lifetime and never get a shot like that.
The internet is not about content. It's about distribution. It costs a LOT of money to use a human -- the artist -- to "distribute" that image from nature onto his digital camera. From there it costs zero to distribute it to the rest of the world.
The answer is to tie the initial "distribution" of the data with the end consumer. So share the small image for free with whomever wants to see it, then charge a small fortune for a steganographically watermarked 10MB one. If you "sign" your images with a tamper-proof record of whom the recipient is, who you are, and perhaps a personalized message, not only can you track the image, you increase its value for the buyer. It's a good thing for both patron and artist.
ADD: As a real-world example of how this works, take my funny picture collection. (http://caption-of-the-day.com) I have a hobby of collecting funny pictures. Finally decided to put them all on a blog.
Now many of these pictures are actually web comics, or demotivators, or whatever. I want to credit each artist, but I'm just some schmuck collecting funny pictures. I don't have time to research each and every one.
But with watermarking I don't have to. Most of the times whoever made the image also put a watermark on it pointing back to their website. So instead of "lifting" the pictures, I'm actually providing free advertising for the artist. Artists compete to have their work distributed for free. Consumers become big fans of certain brands and help the artists advertise. Think of how worse this system would be if the artists controlled everything. DRM is a menace. The business models might be different, but The technology community has solved the exact problem this photographer is concerned about.
Firstly, I'm loving http://caption-of-the-day.com/ - but it appears to be broken. "Click to View" only activates the top post (in Firefox 9 at least). Will be adding you to my list of sites to visit regularly though...
Secondly, whilst watermarking works for funny pictures, or people who solely sell artwork, it isn't something I would class as a solution. For people who mainly want to share their work, but simply don't want it ripped off, it's ruining the original artwork. Watermarks are ugly.
Also, the OP says he's not concerned with distribution...
> The replacement value is actually much more than that.
While I agree with his main point regarding letting someone use your output "for credit", judging the cost of a photo like this is more than somewhat bogus and makes his argument sound silly (so the people that need to listen to his correct point will just turn off long before they get to it).
The replacement value for a photo has nothing to has very little to do with what it cost to take the photo, or what it would cost the user to have the photo taken especially for them.
Most photos are worthless except to the person who took them. If someone uses your photo without permission you have not lost the photo so it does not need replacing.
What he may have lost is the price he could have commanded for exclusive use of the image, because he can no longer sell/license exclusive use (as it has already been used). So what he would need reimbursing for is the value he could have gained through such licensing (plus any relevant legal and admin fees), not the cost of taking the photo (which might be far a greater amount, or might equally be a far lower one). It is an opportunity cost issue, not a time-and-materials cost issue.
The "cost to make from scratch" argument isn't really valid either: you have to consider supply and demand of the "images for license" market as generating the image from scratch is far from the only alternative option. There may be many photographers out there with similar images at a much cheaper rate - said images may be less perfect for the intended use, but the price/availability difference may make this an acceptable compromise.
Of course he has now set a fixed price for the image If you use it without negotiating a different price then this is what you can expect to have to pay when found. It might be a silly price, but that is the price: take it, leave it, or try negotiate something else - simply taking something for nothing because you disagree on price (the position taken by many people when they try to justify downloading a movie or game from an unofficial source) would not be acceptable.
Your point regarding only publishing the small version of the image publicly is a valid one, and the only way to protect the exclusivity of the larger format image: but this isn't perfect because once the larger format image is out there it is no longer protected because it may be used in a way that allows it to be copied and reused without permission (any contract with an exclusivity clause would need to be carefully worded to make it clear who is responsible for protecting said exclusive use: who (the creator or the licensee) should be responsible for chasing unlicensed users who have taken the image from the licensee's materials? (the source copied from being identified by the watermark you describe)).
I think I understand the point that the photographer is trying to make, but phrasing it as “It cost me $6,612 to take this photo” is leading to a bunch of tangential arguments over that specific number.
The photographer’s beef is with people who want to take his work, use it in their own publications without paying him anything, and then tell him that he should be happy with such a deal because he’s getting free publicity out of it. But this photographer did not get his camera, lenses, computer, etc. for free, and the people who want to use his work are doing it for an enterprise where they expect to be paid, so why should the photographer be the only one holding the bag?
The “$6,612” number is beside the point. A publisher who says “I will pay you one dollar for the right to use that picture” is in a whole different league from one who says “let me use it and I’ll give you credit”, because the “one dollar” fellow is at least respecting the photographer as a fellow businessman.
I'm also a photographer, and I don't really buy into this particular philosophical argument.
The problem with photography is that you're never dealing with ORIGINAL ART. When John or I give a JPEG to a magazine or website, we're not _losing_ anything. This is the same argument that the RIAA and MPAA have tried to spin for over a decade.
I sell prints of my photos, and as long as no one else sets up shop and starts selling cheaper copies, I don't see a problem with sites and magazines using my photos.
The basic gist is: You have spent $6k. You can either have your photo in some magazine, or not. You can have that free publicity, or not. The only way you are 'losing' money is if the magazine would've paid you in the first place -- but again, for a non-original piece of art that they're (almost certainly) not getting an exclusive license on... the going rate isn't very much anyway.
These are costs that can't be added in a discussion on the cost of producing the products on an on-going basis. Otherwise you need to take those 6000 bucks mentioned and divide it by the thousands of photos you're going to make with that equipment.
Which will bring the cost of a photo to something much more real (excluding on-going time and gasoline investments): less than $1
Also, in capitalism the price doesn't necessarily reflect the cost of producing something. It is rather an equation of value, supply and demand. So a much better technique is to convince me why I should like that photo. Educating readers on recognizing quality is better than analyzing the costs involved.
The very existence of an intellectual property market is absurd. In my opinion, the scenarios in which person should expect to make a profit doing something creative are:
A. The person is hired to create something.
B. The person creates something that's not easy to copy.
If you were hired to design a set for a play, you would get paid for your work. If you created a physical three-dimensional sculpture, someone else could try to imitate it, but the imitation wouldn't be a perfect copy. That means your original sculpture would still have value and could be sold. On the other hand, if you, on your own time, created something that cost nothing to copy, such as--oh, I don't know--a picture of a sunset, you should not expect to profit from selling it. It wouldn't matter how much time/effort/money/energy you put into creating it.
So, what's going on with SOPA then? The government realized that they don't have the resources to police the Internet for copyright violations. Of course they don't. It's impossible. So now they're attempting to foist that impossible responsibility on website owners. I have no idea how the bill is worded, but I can't imagine a scenario where the wording could be "fixed" while keeping the intention. The intention is broken. Copyright law is broken.
Copyright should be non-exclusive. Anyone should be allowed to copy anything for free.
All this sort of intellectual property market does is move the decision to "hire" someone, that is to use their work in exchange for money, to after the work has been executed rather than before.
The person has produced the work and they offer the opportunity to enter into an agreement for payment after the fact.
You say you're fine with entering into an agreement before the work is produced, but you don't believe it should be possible to enter into such an agreement after the fact. This doesn't seem very consistent to me.
Did you really just discount the entire digital realm as worthless because of the inherent fungibility of bits? Thank God not everyone thinks like you, otherwise our technological progress would basically grind to a halt, as people would be back to trading 6 pigs for 10 loaves of bread.
Actually I wouldn't be surprised if some food journalists or whatever get to dine for free in restaurants. Goods for exposure is a valid business proposition. It is valid to reject it, too, but I don't understand the fuss.
If 37signals would feature me on their homepage for a week I would probably also give them some "free" work in exchange. No offense taken.
I guess the "problem" is that he was approached by people he did not deem worthy. Reminds me of women who complain about being approached all the time, but I suspect they wouldn't complain about being approached by Brad Pitt or George Clooney. Just saying it is not the approaching that is actually the problem, it is the who is doing the approaching.
While I don't agree with the justification of the cost based on required tools to create the image. I do believe that the main value from the photograph is the user's creativity and passion for using the tools to capture the photograph.
This comment is not free. Using the same weird accounting method, it cost me around 1000$ to make. So what ?
If you don't want a file to be used, don't put it on internet. Understand what IT is, understand what it means to freely exchange information. You are right, you got free exposure, for free. That's why we get your image, for free. The information super-highways flow in both directions.
Discussion of fixed costs, variable costs, sunk costs, marginal costs, and opportunity costs and lots of other accounting and economics pricing models avoided.
But you should make sure your CFO can explain and your marketing department has a deep understanding.
And consider taking some accounting and micro-econ courses when you have the chance.
[+] [-] parfe|14 years ago|reply
The author should not have included any monetary figure in the article as doing so brings down the wrath of a thousand pedants with pocket calculators proving he overcharges and overvalues his work. So many people here seem to think they somehow "got him" on some straw-man price-point that clearly does not exist.
Meanwhile, the figure he calculated clearly exists to make the point that creating such an image costs more to him than clicking Save As... did to you and he wants to be appropriately compensated in dollars.
The fact the comments here seem to lack the professional empathy to jump from "How do you make money? Charge for your webapp!" To "How do you make money? Charge for your photos!" really shows how myopic the community can be. Not everyone builds a career around trying to make social network v35.0
tl;dr Pay photographers for their work, like you pay any other professional.
edit: And for a real cherry on top, the blog post itself appears to be taken in whole from http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnmueller/6643032477/in/photo... I suppose John Mueller could have agreed to have his content republished but nothing indicates that to be the case and a skimming of the petapixel blog doesn't seem to include many guest contributors.
The author's real blog is at http://johnbmuellerphotography.blogspot.com/
[+] [-] smackfu|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdietrich|14 years ago|reply
Then he has to work as a professional. "Professional landscape photographer" is an oxymoron. There is essentially no commercial market for landscape photography. For all practical purposes, there are an infinite number of sufficiently high-quality images available for free.
The only thing I'm formally qualified to do is sound engineering. The development of Digital Audio Workstation software and cheap microphones meant that by the time I left college, there weren't any recording studios left to hire me. I could say exactly the same thing as the OP about how much my studio equipment costs, about how long I spent learning my craft, but the simple fact is that there are too many studio engineers willing to work for free.
Landscape photography is a hobby, like sport or music. Some people are so exceptionally good at that they can make a living doing it, but everyone else has to suck it up, act like an adult and do something that people will actually pay for. John B. Mueller shoots weddings, I write software. He shoots landscapes for fun, I record music for fun, which is exactly why nobody will pay us to do it - thousands like us will do it for free.
[+] [-] bmelton|14 years ago|reply
I don't know if he was just trying to establish the 'overhead' costs, or that at a minimum, discounting his time, that's what it cost him, but I'd like to see that number be higher, if anything.
This, to me, is the same argument I made recently regarding musicians, in the creation of music, the finished work isn't zero-cost. Ignoring the recording studio costs, media costs, distribution costs, there are other costs like instruments, instrument lessons where applicable, etc.
Even if you believe that you should be able to reproduce an artist's work free of charge (which I admit I often am conflicted on,) you have no right to take the work that it cost them money to produce for free because you aren't depriving them of anything.
[+] [-] randomdata|14 years ago|reply
I will point out that there is a reason HN advocates making money by developing web apps over creating binaries that are posted online for all to copy, with a shareware note attached. We have the exact same problem with copying. We just have learned to deal with the problem as best we can. Is there really nothing photographers can do on their own to mitigate the problem?
[+] [-] lux|14 years ago|reply
As for only charging for your expertise, use of equipment/software, and time are also things businesses legitimately charge for, so it's fair to factor those into your value as well. It may not be the best way to assess the worth of your work, but it is a part of it.
[+] [-] lysol|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cdr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdaviesa|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mibbitor|14 years ago|reply
A photo isn't a service. It's a collection of bytes that is trivial to copy.
If you want to make money as a photographer, you need to structure it in a way that means it's hard to copy. But these days, anyone can take pro quality photos with minimal talent. If he's an exceptional photographer, he should be able to charge for his time when taking photos. But that's about it.
With the music industry, artists can move from selling CDs to doing more live tours. Not sure that's something photographers can really do.
[+] [-] jdietrich|14 years ago|reply
Cameras are expensive. Photographs are almost worthless. Supply utterly outstrips demand, especially for shots like landscapes that have great appeal for amateur photographers but little commercial utility.
Ten years ago, you could name every paparazzo working in London. They were a small circle of time-served photogs who knew everyone, and whom everyone knew. There was an infrastructure of couriers and darkrooms to get images from film to press in time. They spent years cultivating relationships with celebrities, doormen and nightclub owners. Today, there are countless PJ students and teenagers hurtling around Soho on scooters. With a cheap DSLR and a smartphone, an image can be on the front page of dailymail.com in 20 minutes.
The new breed see their work as a more exciting alternative to working weekends in a shop. Most of them are happy to get a quarter of what images used to sell for. They shoot using the modern equivalent of "f/8 and be there" and need practically no technical skill. Rather than cultivating relationships and building sources, many of them rely on Twitter. Unlike the previous generation, many of them are happy to tip each other off and share information. It's now scarcely possible to make a proper living and most of the old-timers are shooting commercial work or weddings.
[+] [-] hellweaver666|14 years ago|reply
Strange you should say that, as we actually hired an ex photo-journalist to do our wedding photos as we didn't want any posed nonsense, just genuine photos of people as they naturally were. The photos that we received were amazing and we were really happy with the results.
I spoke to him on the day of the wedding and he gave me almost the exact same story you've just posted.
It seems to me that every industry that relies on technology gets seriously disrupted when the technology becomes cheap enough - printing, publishing, photography and I'm sure there are many more.
[+] [-] prof_hobart|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jseliger|14 years ago|reply
Actually, even this is less true than it used to be—hence your comment, "With a cheap DSLR and a smartphone [. . .]" You can find stuff the pros were using a few years ago for a fraction of what they paid; a used Canon 5D full frame camera goes for under $1,000 these days (and it'll probably be less when the 5d Mark III hits), and older Rebels like the XTi can be had for ~300. I'm sure things are similar on the Nikon / Sony / etc. side, although I'm less familiar.
Cheap cameras are yielding all kinds of interesting social (cops being unhappy at having their once-deniable brutality filmed, "sexting") and economic (like your paparazzo) effects.
[+] [-] Luc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dextorious|14 years ago|reply
Really? Then the photographer could say: if that's so, go use ANOTHER picture, because I don't fu*n supply mine.
You can't have it both ways, i.e the picture is worthless AND I still insist on using it.
[+] [-] corin_|14 years ago|reply
> * As someone mentioned, THIS single photo didn’t cost me $6,612, but if you wanted to create it, from scratch, that is what is involved. So I consider it the replacement value if it’s stolen, or how much my lawyer will send you a bill for if it’s found being used without my permission.*
I hope he's never pirated a film or he could owe the studio millions and millions of dollars.
He should be arguing that it is expensive to take photos, and that any sales of them need to add up to cover initial and future costs. He should also be arguing that they are paying not just for the expense of taking it, but for his skill and time.
By arguing that one photo is worth that much, he is doing neither and looks like a moron.
[+] [-] bambax|14 years ago|reply
I get his point, of course, and (kind of) agree with him, but his argument is weak.
[+] [-] sambeau|14 years ago|reply
He didn't argue that that was the cost of viewing his photograph, he argued that his is what he would be looking for if you used it for commercial gain without permission.
Some photographs do sell for millions of dollars; many news photographs sell for thousands despite the photographer having no skill and having just been in the right place at the right time.
Do you actually now how much a magazine pays to use a single photograph?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2011/nov/12/w...
[+] [-] elisee|14 years ago|reply
I don't see why he would use this value as a basis for damages incurred though, since even someone publishing his photo without licensing it, hasn't taken (stolen) the photo from him. "Replacement value" has no meaning in this digital context.
In my opinion, there's no relation whatsoever between the cost of taking the photo and the damages he should seek. I think the damages should be correlated with the licensing value of the photo, majored appropriately for not acquiring licensing prior to using it.
[+] [-] artursapek|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] drumdance|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bountie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guynamedloren|14 years ago|reply
Regarding the value of the photo, I highly doubt he believes a single photo is worth $6,612. He is merely trying to explain that he should be paid for his work, and he has. Arguing that it is expensive to take photos wouldn't have gotten your attention. This got your attention. He won.
Edit: I have absolutely no affiliation with Mueller nor have I heard of him prior to this article, but was bothered by the negative and deliberately ignorant comments posted here. Very unlike Hacker News...
[+] [-] da_n|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bediger|14 years ago|reply
"Deserves to be paid". Humbug. That's the beginnings of an aristocracy that "deserve" to rule.
[+] [-] colinm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] digitalclubb|14 years ago|reply
It's like the 'Picasso Principle' where a woman approached Picasso for a sketch, he did something in 5 minutes and quoted her $10,000.
She said 'it only took you 5 minutes' and his response was 'no, it took me a lifetime'.
Full read here: http://bit.ly/A8ABL4
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|14 years ago|reply
The internet is not about content. It's about distribution. It costs a LOT of money to use a human -- the artist -- to "distribute" that image from nature onto his digital camera. From there it costs zero to distribute it to the rest of the world.
The answer is to tie the initial "distribution" of the data with the end consumer. So share the small image for free with whomever wants to see it, then charge a small fortune for a steganographically watermarked 10MB one. If you "sign" your images with a tamper-proof record of whom the recipient is, who you are, and perhaps a personalized message, not only can you track the image, you increase its value for the buyer. It's a good thing for both patron and artist.
ADD: As a real-world example of how this works, take my funny picture collection. (http://caption-of-the-day.com) I have a hobby of collecting funny pictures. Finally decided to put them all on a blog.
Now many of these pictures are actually web comics, or demotivators, or whatever. I want to credit each artist, but I'm just some schmuck collecting funny pictures. I don't have time to research each and every one.
But with watermarking I don't have to. Most of the times whoever made the image also put a watermark on it pointing back to their website. So instead of "lifting" the pictures, I'm actually providing free advertising for the artist. Artists compete to have their work distributed for free. Consumers become big fans of certain brands and help the artists advertise. Think of how worse this system would be if the artists controlled everything. DRM is a menace. The business models might be different, but The technology community has solved the exact problem this photographer is concerned about.
[+] [-] dazbradbury|14 years ago|reply
Secondly, whilst watermarking works for funny pictures, or people who solely sell artwork, it isn't something I would class as a solution. For people who mainly want to share their work, but simply don't want it ripped off, it's ruining the original artwork. Watermarks are ugly.
Also, the OP says he's not concerned with distribution...
[+] [-] dspillett|14 years ago|reply
While I agree with his main point regarding letting someone use your output "for credit", judging the cost of a photo like this is more than somewhat bogus and makes his argument sound silly (so the people that need to listen to his correct point will just turn off long before they get to it).
The replacement value for a photo has nothing to has very little to do with what it cost to take the photo, or what it would cost the user to have the photo taken especially for them.
Most photos are worthless except to the person who took them. If someone uses your photo without permission you have not lost the photo so it does not need replacing.
What he may have lost is the price he could have commanded for exclusive use of the image, because he can no longer sell/license exclusive use (as it has already been used). So what he would need reimbursing for is the value he could have gained through such licensing (plus any relevant legal and admin fees), not the cost of taking the photo (which might be far a greater amount, or might equally be a far lower one). It is an opportunity cost issue, not a time-and-materials cost issue.
The "cost to make from scratch" argument isn't really valid either: you have to consider supply and demand of the "images for license" market as generating the image from scratch is far from the only alternative option. There may be many photographers out there with similar images at a much cheaper rate - said images may be less perfect for the intended use, but the price/availability difference may make this an acceptable compromise.
Of course he has now set a fixed price for the image If you use it without negotiating a different price then this is what you can expect to have to pay when found. It might be a silly price, but that is the price: take it, leave it, or try negotiate something else - simply taking something for nothing because you disagree on price (the position taken by many people when they try to justify downloading a movie or game from an unofficial source) would not be acceptable.
Your point regarding only publishing the small version of the image publicly is a valid one, and the only way to protect the exclusivity of the larger format image: but this isn't perfect because once the larger format image is out there it is no longer protected because it may be used in a way that allows it to be copied and reused without permission (any contract with an exclusivity clause would need to be carefully worded to make it clear who is responsible for protecting said exclusive use: who (the creator or the licensee) should be responsible for chasing unlicensed users who have taken the image from the licensee's materials? (the source copied from being identified by the watermark you describe)).
[+] [-] mtr|14 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.johnbmueller.com/index2.php?v=v1
[+] [-] sethg|14 years ago|reply
The photographer’s beef is with people who want to take his work, use it in their own publications without paying him anything, and then tell him that he should be happy with such a deal because he’s getting free publicity out of it. But this photographer did not get his camera, lenses, computer, etc. for free, and the people who want to use his work are doing it for an enterprise where they expect to be paid, so why should the photographer be the only one holding the bag?
The “$6,612” number is beside the point. A publisher who says “I will pay you one dollar for the right to use that picture” is in a whole different league from one who says “let me use it and I’ll give you credit”, because the “one dollar” fellow is at least respecting the photographer as a fellow businessman.
[+] [-] sirrocco|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrsebastian|14 years ago|reply
The problem with photography is that you're never dealing with ORIGINAL ART. When John or I give a JPEG to a magazine or website, we're not _losing_ anything. This is the same argument that the RIAA and MPAA have tried to spin for over a decade.
I sell prints of my photos, and as long as no one else sets up shop and starts selling cheaper copies, I don't see a problem with sites and magazines using my photos.
The basic gist is: You have spent $6k. You can either have your photo in some magazine, or not. You can have that free publicity, or not. The only way you are 'losing' money is if the magazine would've paid you in the first place -- but again, for a non-original piece of art that they're (almost certainly) not getting an exclusive license on... the going rate isn't very much anyway.
[+] [-] bad_user|14 years ago|reply
These are costs that can't be added in a discussion on the cost of producing the products on an on-going basis. Otherwise you need to take those 6000 bucks mentioned and divide it by the thousands of photos you're going to make with that equipment.
Which will bring the cost of a photo to something much more real (excluding on-going time and gasoline investments): less than $1
Also, in capitalism the price doesn't necessarily reflect the cost of producing something. It is rather an equation of value, supply and demand. So a much better technique is to convince me why I should like that photo. Educating readers on recognizing quality is better than analyzing the costs involved.
[+] [-] Suncho|14 years ago|reply
A. The person is hired to create something.
B. The person creates something that's not easy to copy.
If you were hired to design a set for a play, you would get paid for your work. If you created a physical three-dimensional sculpture, someone else could try to imitate it, but the imitation wouldn't be a perfect copy. That means your original sculpture would still have value and could be sold. On the other hand, if you, on your own time, created something that cost nothing to copy, such as--oh, I don't know--a picture of a sunset, you should not expect to profit from selling it. It wouldn't matter how much time/effort/money/energy you put into creating it.
So, what's going on with SOPA then? The government realized that they don't have the resources to police the Internet for copyright violations. Of course they don't. It's impossible. So now they're attempting to foist that impossible responsibility on website owners. I have no idea how the bill is worded, but I can't imagine a scenario where the wording could be "fixed" while keeping the intention. The intention is broken. Copyright law is broken.
Copyright should be non-exclusive. Anyone should be allowed to copy anything for free.
[+] [-] waterlesscloud|14 years ago|reply
The person has produced the work and they offer the opportunity to enter into an agreement for payment after the fact.
You say you're fine with entering into an agreement before the work is produced, but you don't believe it should be possible to enter into such an agreement after the fact. This doesn't seem very consistent to me.
[+] [-] slavak|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jodrellblank|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tichy|14 years ago|reply
If 37signals would feature me on their homepage for a week I would probably also give them some "free" work in exchange. No offense taken.
I guess the "problem" is that he was approached by people he did not deem worthy. Reminds me of women who complain about being approached all the time, but I suspect they wouldn't complain about being approached by Brad Pitt or George Clooney. Just saying it is not the approaching that is actually the problem, it is the who is doing the approaching.
[+] [-] yummybear|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SquareWheel|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tagawa|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] one-man-bucket|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ashcairo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Iv|14 years ago|reply
If you don't want a file to be used, don't put it on internet. Understand what IT is, understand what it means to freely exchange information. You are right, you got free exposure, for free. That's why we get your image, for free. The information super-highways flow in both directions.
[+] [-] jerrya|14 years ago|reply
But you should make sure your CFO can explain and your marketing department has a deep understanding.
And consider taking some accounting and micro-econ courses when you have the chance.
ESPECIALLY if you are the technical founder....
[+] [-] kghose|14 years ago|reply