5 ms·

I think the comments are fine, because the entire premise of the blog post is wrong. He should be paid because his skill as a photographer is worth money, not

by smackfu 15y ago

I think the comments are fine, because the entire premise of the blog post is wrong. He should be paid because his skill as a photographer is worth money, not because he paid for a lot of expensive equipment.

jexe 15y ago
That's exactly it. It's like telling someone that my software is worth $1700 because that's what my laptop cost.
dchest 15y ago
He should be paid because he demands payment. This is a valid thing to do according to current laws, which allow authors to control the distribution of their "intellectual work" on author's terms (with some exceptions). Both author's skills and the cost of equipment are irrelevant. If the author decides that the cost of equipment is the pricing factor, it's his or her right. The comments here mostly point out that this pricing decision is not logical.
- jonknee 15y ago
  He was also complaining about people asking for his photos for free. That has nothing to do with the law.
  - dchest 15y ago
    Asking to license photos for free is also a valid and common way to acquire licenses. This particular author is annoyed by such requests, because he wants to license the right to copy the result of his work for a fee. Other authors are okay with this, and some even explicitly allow such use (see Creative Commons licenses). This has everything to do with the law, because if not for copyright laws, he wouldn't be able to demand payments for copying of his published photos.
    - gergles 15y ago
      He'd be able to 'demand' whatever he wants. Charities "demand" donations all the time and get them, and there's no protectionist law they have to deal with.
      - dchest 15y ago
        English is not my first language, but dictionary tells me that I used the term "demand" correctly: 5. (Law) (a) The asking or seeking for what is due or claimed as due. ... [1913 Webster]
        gergles 15y ago
        The point was that you don't need any law to demand money for something. Copyright may legitimize your demand (in some people's eyes) but you can demand anything for anything. I demand you pay me $20 for the privilege of reading my posts. See, it worked fine. I have the same legitimacy as anyone else that asks for money. You can choose to pay it or not. There's no law that suggests I can charge you, but I can certainly ask and you can choose to pay, if you want. It's a tricky nuance but it's still a nuance.
        dchest 15y ago
        I still don't see the point. Are you arguing whether the author could ask for payments for copies? Sure he could. Even if there were no copyright laws. But only because of the copyright laws he can demand to be paid. Or you're arguing that "demand" doesn't necessary mean "ask for what is due, legally"? In this case I think what I meant was clear enough, since you seem to recognize that there's a nuance. If every word had only one strictly clear meaning, we wouldn't have numbered lists in dictionaries. (By the way, in my first sentence, by "point" I didn't mean a punctuation mark, nor did I mean an indefinitely small space.)
        Ihavenoname 15y ago
        chest your english is clear and to the point. Ignore those comments he is off on a tangent. I suspect the anger, FEAR and disgust with SOPA PROTECT IP and the other efforts to censor the internet and eliminate sure processes is the origin of many of this not so generous comments. These undermine the internet our jobs, not to be overly dramatic, and everyones freedom not just in the US. The biggest copyright holders are at the forfront I can understand the spillover. Unfortunately many of the people that actually create the great works are against it but they don't have the say or the influence individually. Regards.
ctdonath 15y ago
Indeed; not a stretch to say he could have just happened across that opportunity while borrowing a cheap point-and-shoot, applying his skill at identifying & framing a shot and using whatever equipment at hand to its full potential. Ultimately it's supply-and-demand: get paid $X because people are willing to pay that to acquire the image, regardless of his alleged talent and costs. As it is, he's handing out small copies of that image for free, while begging people to not violate abstract notions of intellectual property. Maybe someone will like the image enough to order a hard-to-make high-quality large-size limited-quantity signed-and-numbered copy and pay a dear price for it.
hammock 15y ago
Yes, a thousand times yes. "The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his work," said Joseph Stalin. Which is backwards. What many people with only a superficial understanding of economics don't seem to grasp is that the "perfect competition" ecosystem that is described in Econ 101 - in which goods are priced at cost - is an EMERGENT property of free trade. Key word is emergent. The cost of a good is not enough justification for judgment of what someone out to pay for that good. When that good, labor, and all inputs of that good, and inputs of those inputs are priced fairly and freely, then such pricing tends to emerge. But saying "I paid $XX for a plane ticket and this equipment to produce this good so I deserve to be paid $XX for it" is Begging The Question. The inventive camera maker, or the bankrupt airline that sold you the plane ticket below cost, could be make the same argument of you. And the cheated, suicidal Foxconn employee who made the camera components could make the same argument. And so on. The point is you can't force the pricing you want. Allow people to trade freely, and order emerges.
- nsxwolf 15y ago
  I don't see what's wrong with his pricing model. He's basing his price on what it would cost someone, starting from nothing, to go out and create a picture like that. It's actually a discount in that regard since most people would have to spend considerable time learning how to take that photo. It's a perfectly good starting place for a price. And nowhere did he say that price wasn't negotiable.
  - bmelton 15y ago
    In addition, I suspect that's the price he would sell the rights to the photo for (if he would sell it at all), meaning that whomever paid that price would own the work outright. I also suspect that he would be happy to license uses of that photo for substantially less (though I'm VERY curious as to what that cost is, actually) to magazines and other people wanting to use the work on a single-use basis.
  - richieb 15y ago
    He can set the price as he likes. But this does not mean that he will find a buyer.
joebadmo 15y ago
This is parallel to a recent HN thread on copyright: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3303796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3303796 I think photographers (like musicians) face two problems: the amateurization of photography, and the lack of marginal cost of distribution. Photographers need to figure out how to get paid. You can try to charge me the cost of production if you want, but I'm not going to pay it, esp. when there's a large and growing base of amateurs who will give me their work for free. This is why there is a culture of asking for a free license in exchange for exposure: because market dynamics have driven the price down that far. Someone who approaches you for free work isn't going to pay you what you want no matter what. You need to find the people who will pay you. The freemium model is the only one that really makes sense to me. You give away your past work for free, as a marketing cost, and charge a service fee for those premium customers who have the budget. You charge for the actual production, not for the distribution.
- swang 15y ago
  He has figured out a way to get paid. He takes incredible pictures people want to use for their company and sells it to them. He has also mentioned that people who give stuff away for free or "credit" are just burned again later on because other companies don't want to pay, they want to "credit" As someone who considers himself an amateur photographer, there is no way I could just "reproduce" that for free to someone. First consider the amount of money his lens costs, how much his filter costs, because those things are not "common" parts of an amateur photographer's kit. Then consider the amount of time he put into his craft, the countless hours he spend reading up on photography: lighting, white balance, ISO, apeture, etc. Then going outside to do nature shoots or going inside for some modeling on a white screen. All of that is blood, sweat and tears he expended to be good at what he is doing. Do you think a junior programmer is the same as a senior programmer? There are obviously times where some program or code is so simple that either programmer could get the job done (and even then a lesser programmer might miss some minute detail), but if it were true for all programming jobs then obviously the people in the industry would be screwed because no one would pay a salary for more than just a junior programmer. Replace what you've said about photography with programming and do you still believe it to be true? If you really feel that you should get your photos free from an amateur photographer that is your choice, but you're not going to get the same picture that that guy took and he's happy to not sell you that picture for free. Just getting the perfect lighting for a photograph is tough and I doubt an amateur could just set that up and take it for you at that quality.
burke 15y ago
Exactly. If I take a photo with my lens cap on, that photo is not worth $2000, or whatever the price of my camera + computer works out to. It'll be damn near completely black. Conversely, if a famous photographer took a beautiful photo with a disposable camera, you can bet it would be worth more than $15. The entire premise is near-offensively wrong.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
I have to agree with this. His reasoning falls apart on his second sale right? How long does he own that camera? How many pictures does he take? What is the marginal cost for the 'next' picture he takes? How many times does he sell the same picture? There are two kinds of photography, 'on demand' and 'stock' which is to say you hire someone to come out and take pictures at your wedding that is 'on demand', you need a picture of a waterfall in Hawaii to put into a travel brochure you find one in a catalog, that is 'stock'. The guy who takes wedding pictures has lots of great equipment. The guy that shot mine brought three cameras, one for shots around the event, one taking shots of the location , and a portrait setup for one on one pictures. Now he probably had 15 - 20K worth of gear there, but he does 10 - 15 weddings a year. So even amortizing with a lifetime of 3 years for each piece of gear his equipment 'cost' is worst case 30 shoots, so $666 per shoot. I really do think the think the effect here is that it is so easy to put photographs on the web, and for many folks they just took the picture for themselves, they don't have any problem at all giving people rights to reproducing their picture anywhere. So people who acquire pictures ask for it free first, and then if you respond that no, you are only interested in selling it, you can come to a negotiation over price. Unfortunately, from what I've read on photography blogs there are also some pretty large price / value discrepancies between photographers and buyers. This seems to lead to a number of blog postings like the one referenced with (often) one side of the story.
baddox 15y ago
If I bought all that same equipment, and took a terrible photograph, then according to his argument my photograph would also be worth 6 grand.

by smackfu 15y ago

jexe 15y ago

That's exactly it. It's like telling someone that my software is worth $1700 because that's what my laptop cost.

dchest 15y ago

He should be paid because he demands payment. This is a valid thing to do according to current laws, which allow authors to control the distribution of their "intellectual work" on author's terms (with some exceptions). Both author's skills and the cost of equipment are irrelevant. If the author decides that the cost of equipment is the pricing factor, it's his or her right. The comments here mostly point out that this pricing decision is not logical.

jonknee 15y ago
He was also complaining about people asking for his photos for free. That has nothing to do with the law.
- dchest 15y ago
  Asking to license photos for free is also a valid and common way to acquire licenses. This particular author is annoyed by such requests, because he wants to license the right to copy the result of his work for a fee. Other authors are okay with this, and some even explicitly allow such use (see Creative Commons licenses). This has everything to do with the law, because if not for copyright laws, he wouldn't be able to demand payments for copying of his published photos.
  - gergles 15y ago
    He'd be able to 'demand' whatever he wants. Charities "demand" donations all the time and get them, and there's no protectionist law they have to deal with.
    - dchest 15y ago
      English is not my first language, but dictionary tells me that I used the term "demand" correctly: 5. (Law) (a) The asking or seeking for what is due or claimed as due. ... [1913 Webster]
      - gergles 15y ago
        The point was that you don't need any law to demand money for something. Copyright may legitimize your demand (in some people's eyes) but you can demand anything for anything. I demand you pay me $20 for the privilege of reading my posts. See, it worked fine. I have the same legitimacy as anyone else that asks for money. You can choose to pay it or not. There's no law that suggests I can charge you, but I can certainly ask and you can choose to pay, if you want. It's a tricky nuance but it's still a nuance.
        dchest 15y ago
        I still don't see the point. Are you arguing whether the author could ask for payments for copies? Sure he could. Even if there were no copyright laws. But only because of the copyright laws he can demand to be paid. Or you're arguing that "demand" doesn't necessary mean "ask for what is due, legally"? In this case I think what I meant was clear enough, since you seem to recognize that there's a nuance. If every word had only one strictly clear meaning, we wouldn't have numbered lists in dictionaries. (By the way, in my first sentence, by "point" I didn't mean a punctuation mark, nor did I mean an indefinitely small space.)
        Ihavenoname 15y ago
        chest your english is clear and to the point. Ignore those comments he is off on a tangent. I suspect the anger, FEAR and disgust with SOPA PROTECT IP and the other efforts to censor the internet and eliminate sure processes is the origin of many of this not so generous comments. These undermine the internet our jobs, not to be overly dramatic, and everyones freedom not just in the US. The biggest copyright holders are at the forfront I can understand the spillover. Unfortunately many of the people that actually create the great works are against it but they don't have the say or the influence individually. Regards.

ctdonath 15y ago

Indeed; not a stretch to say he could have just happened across that opportunity while borrowing a cheap point-and-shoot, applying his skill at identifying & framing a shot and using whatever equipment at hand to its full potential. Ultimately it's supply-and-demand: get paid $X because people are willing to pay that to acquire the image, regardless of his alleged talent and costs. As it is, he's handing out small copies of that image for free, while begging people to not violate abstract notions of intellectual property. Maybe someone will like the image enough to order a hard-to-make high-quality large-size limited-quantity signed-and-numbered copy and pay a dear price for it.

hammock 15y ago

Yes, a thousand times yes. "The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his work," said Joseph Stalin. Which is backwards. What many people with only a superficial understanding of economics don't seem to grasp is that the "perfect competition" ecosystem that is described in Econ 101 - in which goods are priced at cost - is an EMERGENT property of free trade. Key word is emergent. The cost of a good is not enough justification for judgment of what someone out to pay for that good. When that good, labor, and all inputs of that good, and inputs of those inputs are priced fairly and freely, then such pricing tends to emerge. But saying "I paid $XX for a plane ticket and this equipment to produce this good so I deserve to be paid $XX for it" is Begging The Question. The inventive camera maker, or the bankrupt airline that sold you the plane ticket below cost, could be make the same argument of you. And the cheated, suicidal Foxconn employee who made the camera components could make the same argument. And so on. The point is you can't force the pricing you want. Allow people to trade freely, and order emerges.

nsxwolf 15y ago
I don't see what's wrong with his pricing model. He's basing his price on what it would cost someone, starting from nothing, to go out and create a picture like that. It's actually a discount in that regard since most people would have to spend considerable time learning how to take that photo. It's a perfectly good starting place for a price. And nowhere did he say that price wasn't negotiable.
- bmelton 15y ago
  In addition, I suspect that's the price he would sell the rights to the photo for (if he would sell it at all), meaning that whomever paid that price would own the work outright. I also suspect that he would be happy to license uses of that photo for substantially less (though I'm VERY curious as to what that cost is, actually) to magazines and other people wanting to use the work on a single-use basis.
- richieb 15y ago
  He can set the price as he likes. But this does not mean that he will find a buyer.

joebadmo 15y ago

This is parallel to a recent HN thread on copyright: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3303796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3303796 I think photographers (like musicians) face two problems: the amateurization of photography, and the lack of marginal cost of distribution. Photographers need to figure out how to get paid. You can try to charge me the cost of production if you want, but I'm not going to pay it, esp. when there's a large and growing base of amateurs who will give me their work for free. This is why there is a culture of asking for a free license in exchange for exposure: because market dynamics have driven the price down that far. Someone who approaches you for free work isn't going to pay you what you want no matter what. You need to find the people who will pay you. The freemium model is the only one that really makes sense to me. You give away your past work for free, as a marketing cost, and charge a service fee for those premium customers who have the budget. You charge for the actual production, not for the distribution.

swang 15y ago
He has figured out a way to get paid. He takes incredible pictures people want to use for their company and sells it to them. He has also mentioned that people who give stuff away for free or "credit" are just burned again later on because other companies don't want to pay, they want to "credit" As someone who considers himself an amateur photographer, there is no way I could just "reproduce" that for free to someone. First consider the amount of money his lens costs, how much his filter costs, because those things are not "common" parts of an amateur photographer's kit. Then consider the amount of time he put into his craft, the countless hours he spend reading up on photography: lighting, white balance, ISO, apeture, etc. Then going outside to do nature shoots or going inside for some modeling on a white screen. All of that is blood, sweat and tears he expended to be good at what he is doing. Do you think a junior programmer is the same as a senior programmer? There are obviously times where some program or code is so simple that either programmer could get the job done (and even then a lesser programmer might miss some minute detail), but if it were true for all programming jobs then obviously the people in the industry would be screwed because no one would pay a salary for more than just a junior programmer. Replace what you've said about photography with programming and do you still believe it to be true? If you really feel that you should get your photos free from an amateur photographer that is your choice, but you're not going to get the same picture that that guy took and he's happy to not sell you that picture for free. Just getting the perfect lighting for a photograph is tough and I doubt an amateur could just set that up and take it for you at that quality.

burke 15y ago

Exactly. If I take a photo with my lens cap on, that photo is not worth $2000, or whatever the price of my camera + computer works out to. It'll be damn near completely black. Conversely, if a famous photographer took a beautiful photo with a disposable camera, you can bet it would be worth more than $15. The entire premise is near-offensively wrong.

ChuckMcM 15y ago

I have to agree with this. His reasoning falls apart on his second sale right? How long does he own that camera? How many pictures does he take? What is the marginal cost for the 'next' picture he takes? How many times does he sell the same picture? There are two kinds of photography, 'on demand' and 'stock' which is to say you hire someone to come out and take pictures at your wedding that is 'on demand', you need a picture of a waterfall in Hawaii to put into a travel brochure you find one in a catalog, that is 'stock'. The guy who takes wedding pictures has lots of great equipment. The guy that shot mine brought three cameras, one for shots around the event, one taking shots of the location , and a portrait setup for one on one pictures. Now he probably had 15 - 20K worth of gear there, but he does 10 - 15 weddings a year. So even amortizing with a lifetime of 3 years for each piece of gear his equipment 'cost' is worst case 30 shoots, so $666 per shoot. I really do think the think the effect here is that it is so easy to put photographs on the web, and for many folks they just took the picture for themselves, they don't have any problem at all giving people rights to reproducing their picture anywhere. So people who acquire pictures ask for it free first, and then if you respond that no, you are only interested in selling it, you can come to a negotiation over price. Unfortunately, from what I've read on photography blogs there are also some pretty large price / value discrepancies between photographers and buyers. This seems to lead to a number of blog postings like the one referenced with (often) one side of the story.

baddox 15y ago

If I bought all that same equipment, and took a terrible photograph, then according to his argument my photograph would also be worth 6 grand.