Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Digital Photo Rights - Don't Just Give Away The Farm

The FUTURE of all photographic uses is digital. No one doubts that print will be the antiquated backwater in just a few years. Learn from the mistakes of the publishing industry which gave away its content for free and then watched their print income evaporate, almost overnight. Learn from the publishing industry that ad/usage rates in the online arena had to be a sustainable figure on its' own, and not a parlor trick on a balance sheet.

Your images - your intellectual property - must be valued in both print and digital/online realms at a sustainable level. Just as photographers survived the shift from film to digital by establishing pricing models that were sustainable, and shunned the notion that clients attempted to foist upon us by saying "it's digital, so it's cheaper, just give me a jpeg." Now is the beginning of the time where the shift to digital will become even more pronounced, with the Wall Street Journal and New York Times beginning the shift to charging for online content, and the iPad setting the stage for the next evolution, just as the iPod/iTunes duo set the stage for the future of digital music.

Below is a great WIRED Magazine video on their iPad version:


No, go and read Paul Melchers piece - Share It - where he does an excellent job in advising you about avoiding a few of the pitfalls that are just down the road.


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