this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Photography
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A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.
This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.
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Just out of curiosity, could someone explain to me what that means, exactly? What does relinquishing copyright imply? And what are the alternatives?
It means that the business now owns the images and can decide however they're used. Legally, it's basically like the business took the photos themselves.
The alternative is licensing the images, where the photographer retains ownership, but provides an agreement that allows the client to use the images. Licensing agreements can contain a lot of different restrictions, including:
Duration - how long the client can continue to use the images
Use types - how exactly the client can use the images (for example on a billboard, but not selling merchandise with the image)
Markets - where the client can use the images.
Additionally, when the photographer retains copyright, they can typically use the photos however they want, such as on their website.
Personally, one of my largest clients has it in our contract that they get copyright of the images that I shoot for them, but I have a perpetual license to use them for promotion of my business after they've already used the images. For me, that's all that I'd ever want to use those images for, so it was an easy thing to agree to.
Thanks for the comprehensive explanation. Just to be clear, even if you give up the ownership of the photos you took, can you still be considered the creator of those images, or there's no distinction between the two?