SMF wants your art, forever and for free
While browing for information on the Sacramento International Airport website, I came across a call for local photography. Amateurs and professionals are equally encouraged to submit shots of the Sac area to be used on the lobby displays when they aren’t used for flight information. Sounds like a cool idea: just send them your stuff for consideration on a cd-rom, clearly labeled, in the requested format and size. No faces (likeness rights, you know). There’s no pay involved - but at least they attribute the photograph to the photographer. Not bad, right? Good exposure? Sure. There’s a catch though - and a sizeable one at that.
(the catch and a bleg, after the jump)
Here’s the catch: “Submitted photos will become the sole property of Sacramento County for all purposes.”
Um, all purposes? To my eyes, that means you’d be handing over, for free, an absolute license for SMF to use your photograph for anything it wants, including commercial use, for absolutely no consideration. Forget license, actually, you’ve just given them ownership rights since they say the photo becomes the “sole property” of Sac County.
Screw that. I think it’d be fun, and I’d gladly send something in for their use, if I knew all they would do with it would be to scroll it on the display. But to gift the County intellectual property? No way. Not on those terms. Not on terms that mean I’d technically need their permission to use my photo on a Christmas card, or even on this website.
Am I swapping a photo of a mountain for a photo of a molehill in this complaint? Just doesn’t seem like a good offer to me.
P.S. I was on the site to look for possible shuttle service between SMF and SFO. Came up empty. Called their exclusive - nice - shuttle provider, SuperShuttle, who quoted a bargain $275 each way. Ha! Sure. So back to square one on that. Still not sure how to get to SFO on the day I need to get there. If anyone knows (aside from Amtrak - which I’m just not willing to do with all my luggage on my own), consider this an official bleg.
Greyhound?
No really, there used to be a company called Baylink (?) that would take you by bus to the Vallejo ferryboat terminal, then you’d get on the boat that would drop you at the bottom of Embarcadero. And from there? You could catch BART or the train. It was only 20 bucks one way–which is why it probably doesn’t do operate any more–they used to advertise in the News and Review and you could buy the ticket at the General Store at 5th and L St. It was a fun way to get to the city.
To clartify, SMF states “Submitted photos will become the sole property of Sacramento County for all purposes” because various possible uses are yet to be defined. Could they possibly end up on a calendar or something at some point in the distant future? Possibly. The usage is generally technical in nature. Regardxless, that does not preclude the photographer from using his or her own work as they wish.
A phone call or e-mail to the County Airport System would have clarified this for you.
SMF is testy, I guess. Were my voice working well enough this week, perhaps I’d have called.
Technically, and legally, speaking, if the photo becomes the sole property of Sac County, then it’s the sole property of Sac County and the photographer would not have the right to reuse the photo - especially for his or her own commercial purposes, because it doesn’t belong to him or her anymore, it belongs to the Airport.
Perhaps there are more detailed legal notices available, but interpreting the plain language here is fairly simple.
I’d be more comfortable granting a full license to the County to use the photos for whatever purposes they like, now or in the future (so long as it continued to attribute the photo properly, which I’m assuming it would).
Look at it this way: say someone submits a photo that so perfectly captures Sacramento it becomes iconic. Something along the lines of Eisenstadt’s post-WWII photo of the kissed nurse (which spoke volumes about the end of war, NYC, etc). Sac could profit from this photo - and it would be foolish not to. Now, the photographer, seeing the photo rise in popularity and profitability, starts sticking it on t-shirts and mugs and mousepads.
If I were Sac’s County Counsel, I’d be enforcing the hell out of my cash cow photo, that I own, under the plain terms that applied when the photog submitted the photo.
With something that granted a full license for all purposes, but maintained ownership in the photographer, everyone would be more fully protected. Right now, a County - with all its bargaining strength - gets the full benefit here. That’s not unfair, per se, because the photographer should be aware of the deal from the start. It is, however, something all photogs should consider before contributing.
Actually, to clarify, I did try calling the Co. Aiport System yesterday on the shuttle issue. But after finding little help aside from SuperShuttle being the “Exclusive” provider at SMF, I didn’t get very much further.
This blog post has been nominated for inclusion in The Blog Watch article published Sundays in The Sacramento Bee’s Forum section. As part of a demonstration program, readers are invited to help rate the candidate blog posts. The highest-rated posts will get top consideration for the limited space available Sunday. To participate, visit ipsosacto.com/bw Voting ends Thursday afternoon.
Well put as always!
Congrats on making it into the Bee!
Thanks to everyone who voted for this post’s inclusion in the Bee’s Blog Watch this week!
Also of note: Below I’m pasting a photo contribution agreement that makes sense. Seemingly far more reasonable than SMF’s simple, “it’s ours” method (oh, and there will be a post on “Schmap” in the next day or two - because it’s interesting for more than just its legal good sense):
(source: Schmap site - http://www.schmap.com)