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Photography Question 
Hannah J. Ellis

Legal Rights for Book Cover Photo?

What are my rights as the photographer for a book cover? I was asked to do a photo shoot and to sell the copyright. Then after I gave a price, they told me it was for a book cover. Do I have any right for them to at least give me credits in the book?

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8/15/2010 5:05:40 PM

Gregory LaGrange
BetterPhoto Member Since: 11/11/2003
  Your rights are what you negotiate or choose to give up. You can be hired just to do the shoot and not have rights to future usage of the photos, or you can negotiate on the terms of the usage of the photos.
It's getting more and more common with the influence of microstock, the Internet, and other things that people are wanting and expecting the use of photos to be pay the photographer one time (if at all), give up all photos, and don't offer any input.
Think of it as allowing them to use the photo, and how it gets used. If you want, you can negotiate to use the photo just for the cover and for promotion of the book. And you can add stipulations on other payment, such as if the book comes out in a 2nd edition. Or something like the initial publication amount is 10,000, then if it sells better than expected and they want to add another 10,00,0 then you get paid more.
You always have a right to get credit, but even in a case where you, as an example, gave up all rights to a photo that you took, you wouldn't see a credit line with some other person's name like photo by Joe Smoe. What you'd see is instead of photo by Hannah E., you'd see copyright belongs to Joe Smoe.

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8/16/2010 11:55:54 AM

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