“A photographer has penned an open letter to Taylor Swift accusing her of taking lucrative rights to images – just hours after she criticised Apple for not paying artists fairly,” Gemma Mullin reports for The Daily Mail. “”
“Jason Sheldon, a freelance photographer based in Birmingham, West Midlands, claims that copyright of all pictures taken of the pop star during concerts are passed to her agency after their first use,” Mullin reports. “This means that following the initial publication of photographs, for which a freelancer usually accepts a one-off fee, he cannot further exploit his work.”
It appears to be a complete rights grab, and demands that you are granted free and unlimited use of our work, worldwide, in perpetuity… You say in your letter to Apple that “Three months is a long time to go unpaid.” But you seem happy to restrict us to being paid once, and never being able to earn from our work ever again, while granting you the rights to exploit our work for your benefit for all eternity. How are you any different to Apple? … Photographers need to earn a living as well. Like Apple, you can afford to pay for photographs so please stop forcing us to hand them over to you while you prevent us from publishing them more than once, ever. — Jason Sheldon
Read more in the full article here.
Jason Sheldon’s full open letter to Taylor Swift is here.
MacDailyNews Take: The proverbial shoe is now on Ms. Swift’s foot.
SEE ALSO:
Taylor Swift wins streaming battle as Apple backs down on royalty payments – June 22, 2015
Apple responds to Taylor Swift, indie label complaints; will pay royalties during Apple Music 3-month free trial – June 22, 2015
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Lynn Weiler,” “Dan K.,” and “Les Cayes” for the heads up.]
Do as I say, not as I do.
When you speak up you can usually expect a little unexpected blowback. You will be held to the same standard you ask others to adhere to.
As you should be.
Taylor needed to closely examine her own house to anticipate any unfairness there too before speaking out. Isn’t it amazing how blindsided people can be sensing their own unfair practices while being VERY knee-jerk sensitive seeing any unfairness to them? It’s like a one way ego trip with a lack of basic empathy. Of course humans are born self-centered and the more pampered the sense of entitlement can increase exponentially and empathy often takes a back seat.
Despite being an Apple stock holder I was a bit annoyed to hear Apple was expecting artists to give away 3 months worth of payments which for Apple was a “rounding error” amount of money. But seeing how Cue handled it and the fact they benefit from anti-trust issues (not paying outright before this and called “anti-competitive”) being benevolently “coerced” into paying artists for the trial period make me think they were clever like a fox. Heh.
Taylor, here is a can of worms. Please open it.
Ha
SPROING!!!
He makes a great point, but I’m really tried of hearing about Taylor Swift. I’m not a fan, and to my knowledge, I’ve never heard any of her songs. I don’t care.
I’ve heard a few of her songs. And I don’t listen to music and live under a rock. Where the heck you coming from?!?
Who is Taylor Swift?
Taylor Grift?
Whether you’ve heard her recordings or not is irrelevant. Taylor Swift is perhaps the most powerful woman in music right now. Perhaps Beyonce carries more clout, I don’t know. Back in the 90s a lot of people would have derided Madonna and her music, but she could swing any deal she wanted at every major music label.
And guess what, next year she will fall down the totem pole a few pegs and someone else will replace her. It’s the music biz…no one remains the most powerful for very long.
Which is why you need to get paid while you are in your window of opportunity. Taylor Swift may be good at her craft, it’s a personal taste issue, but you have to respect her as a savvy business woman. And she had the clout to get Apple to do what was the right thing from the start.
As far as the photographer who started this whine tasting, I have a couple of questions. Do you know of the deal up front? Are you granted special access for better composition angles? Do you pay extra for that access? Seems like all part of a package that you are free to walk away from if you don’t think you’ll make money on the deal. Try something different. There are tons of kittens that still aren’t on the internet.
So much free-floating anger in the world.
Sir, your 15 minutes is up.
At first I thought that purchasing a concert ticket, taking pictures of Swift for sale as a professional photographer implied a contract with Swift under her guidelines. If you didn’t agree with the venue restrictions, then take photos at another venue or another celebrity. Or, negotiate your own contract. After reading @pr comments below, I realize the celebrity photo you took becomes someone their property and they can use your photo for profit, without compensation. New agreements, new guidelines for both sides at concert venues.
Hmmm, well, now I kind of want Kanye West to always interrupt her dumb ass. And he’s a douche.
He is lucky that he is allowed to make any money off of her images. Why doesn’t he take pictures of himself and see how many he can sell?
why doesn’t she write, record, engineer, mix, produce, manufacture and distribute her music and see how it sells…
Cos it’d be unmastered and have no cover art. 😉
You know, she actually does all that right? Literally she is the white female Micheal Jackson always wanted to be.
Every aspect of her music, from the first tap of the toe to a new beat, the fist whisps of lyrics, to the approval of cover art, the distribution of the music, to the building of the tour, is all done by Miss Swift.
His point is EXTREMELY well made.. But that arrangement I suspect has been in place for some time now. It only becomes glaringly obvious. Swift was right to point out Apple’s corporate greed and should now JUST AS CLEARLY, revise the contracts with freelancers and allow them to re-sell their work under guidelines.
Apples Greed (in general I agree) on this point they were promoting a service to promote music and after a very brief trail earn money for artists. Maybe they should be charge these artist a promotional fee instead. Also if Taylor has so much money and is not geed then how com her ticket prices nearly doubled for this tour over the last one? Taylor is GREED!
What’s being ignored is the fact that from the very beginning, Apple was paying a higher rate for streaming to make up for non-payments during the 3 month free trial they offer consumers.
Now… Apple is paying for streaming during that trial AND at the higher rate.
So… Mz. Swift is as bright as so many say, then who’s really being “greedy”?
@pr No guide lines, that would impose restrictions which is what Talyor Swift has now.
Just bring back Napster and let people easily get music again then they won’t get any money and see how they like that!
Isn’t it amazing? Apple lifted the entire music up single handedly and made it possible to make money and is trying to do it again and these greedy overpaid musicians don’t want to help. The just sit with their hands out after making a few songs and expect the world to hand them a living for ever.
Boycott overpaid recording musicians and support local artists in concerts.
“Greedy and overpaid” for reaping the rewards for something they have created in the first place?
The only reason guidelines in a contract might be in place here is to provide SOME control over her image which is part and parcel of her product. Freelancers are free to shoot photos of her at airports and elsewhere but in a controlled setting like a concert, if the photographer is being paid, she has the right to some kind of controls. The truth is…everybody has a camera now.. but the payment aspect implies some mutual agreement.
Really Mr. Sheldon? You were paid as a work-for-hire and therefore get what you deserve. If you want royalties, negotiate a better deal. Taylor Swift isn’t doing anything comparable to what she, and hundreds of other musicians, were complaining to Apple about.
I agree with Mr. Sheldon on this one… it’s just a flip-around of what Taylor Swift was complaining about. Paid first, nothing later… but forever after that. That’s like Apple paying artists once for a song, and then never again. Could you imagine how they would feel about that?
Wrong. The issue is she is demanding the photographer give here the rights to their work after the first sale. This is not work for hire but freelance.
I struggle with Taylor Swift’s argument, and with Apple bowing to her. A music trying to make a living is an “entity in business”. She expects that these “indie businesses” be paid for what they do every single time, but at the same time, expects Apple to just give away a free service, of which they are investing heavily into (into many different people, not just musicians), without any compensation for three months. Scale and size of business aside, it’s a double-standard.
Typo – A “musician” trying to make a living…
Neither the musicians, nor their indie labels, had asked Apple to provide service for free for three months. When the first iTunes Music Store started over ten years ago, Apple never gave anything away for free. From day one, if you wanted a song from iTunes, you would pay $0.99. On occasion, there were limited promotions, where they offered a redeemable code for a few free songs (ex. with purchase of an iPod), but nothing on the scale of ‘everything-free-for-90-days”.
Nothing double here; when they signed with Apple for streaming, they reasonably expected to be paid from day one (after all, that’s what happened 13 years ago). Apple is promoting this by giving it away for free (in order to attract market share away from competitors), but is expecting musicians to shoulder lion’s share of the cost of that promotion.
The free song of the week has long been a part of the iTunes Store
Question then is was the artist paid by Apple for each download of the song during that ‘free song’ week?
Watching the nightly local and national news both carried extensive reporting of the Taylor Swift-Apple Music switcheroo. As talked about earlier today, this sounds of the Apple-Swift PR machine.
Swift – yet another of the 1% that does the money-diode thing – the money only flows one way. OK, Ms. Swift, now your covers are off. Do as you say, not as you have been doing. The photos are the work of the artists, not of you. Let’s see how you answer this one.
Except in the case of photography, if it is of people and you as the photographer use it commercially you must get permission from EVERY person recognizable in your image or be sued. The deal that has been worked out in Swift’s case is that photos of her used commercially become her property after the first commercial use by the photographer, assuming no other contracts have been made.
Copyright law says the photographer owns the photos taken by them, not someone else. Of course when the photographer signs off those rights is another person or entity is another story. Until they sign over their rights the photographer is the copyright holder thus owns their images. That applies to anyone that takes a photo, not the owner of the camera.
>The proverbial shoe is now on Ms. Swift’s foot.
Ah yes… and what a pretty little foot it is you know.
Go Apple!
Sure Apples tax evading billions is equal to Taylor swifts millions. silly argument. Apple messed up simple. Move on.
Good for him….and good for her. Creatives need to be paid for the work they do. None of this stuff just magics into existence.
Many people here are clueless about the issue in question.
A photographer can sell his photos to anyone willing to pay for them as many times as he wants.
However, if he takes pictures if Taylor Swift, she becomes the owner of those pictures the moment he sells them to her. The money involved us considerably different; it is much higher than when simply selling rights to publish.
So, this photographer wants to get paid for sale of ownership of his work, but still be able to sell rights for publication after selling the ownership.
Well, that’s not how it works.
He wants an ongoing royalty, exactly as songwriters get regardless of who is performing their music. I have no problem with that. Even if Taylor Swift officially owns that image, and I see no reason why she shouldn’t control the copyright if it is of her and taken at an event she has organised for her fans, why shouldn’t the photographer receive a small payment if that image is used again?
Well, that is precisely the point. The contract with Taylor Swift is such that he is NOT selling her the publishing rights to that picture; he is selling the entire ownership of the photo, transferring all the rights for that photo to her. And make no mistake, he is getting paid for that transfer of ownership. Much more than simply for publishing rights.
I see very good reason why she does this. Taylor Swift is a public brand that is very exposed. She knows she needs to carefully protect her brand. By owning all photographs from concerts, she is the only one who decides where and when those pictures can be used. Nobody can sell her concert picture to some blog that will alter the image, or use it in a derogatory way.
Photographers can decide if they want to sell their work to her or not. If they do, they get a hefty sum of money. If they don’t they are always welcome to stalk her and get candid images from public places (like any other paparazzo would do). Those pictures they can sell as many times, to as many buyers, as they please. But nobody will pay them as much as Taylor Swift would, but they will remain owners of those photos.
From what I understand of the article, he only gets paid if a publisher publishes a photo. If they don’t, he gets zip as Swift’s organization pays him nothing.
However, I’m not sure if that is accurate since “Norton Safe Web” is blocking his webpress site, so I can’t read his full letter. I don’t have Norton anything on my Mac so I figure this is because I am using the internet access provided by a hotel at this time.
i dont know how photos rights work. I do hope they do better than what this photographer says is like.
On the other hand, the Apple issue was totally outrageous not to pay “you” becuase they wanted to provide a three months ad for their service. Apple was very wrong on this. Im totally surprised they went this way. But thats over now. Apple did the right thing.
So lets find out if the photos rights issue is juts with Swift, or is it the same across the business.
That would be much different than the Apple position, where Apple was alone not paying artists during their free period.