Bad contracts

I hear often from photographers who say that they get terrible contracts but they “have to sign them” or they won’t get the project. I counsel to try and negotiate the contract, but if it’s lousy and the client says “sign it as is or no project,” to walk away. Often photographers will say “you don’t know what that is like” when, in fact, I do, both from my experience as a rep and studio manager (where I first learned that a Sharpie is a photographer’s best tool) and in my current business. Take what happened earlier this week as an example.

I got a call early Monday morning. Actually, my phone rang, but I did not recognize the number and, as I was in the middle of something else, I chose not to answer. No voicemail was left. 5 or so minutes later, same thing happened, and still no voicemail. About 10 minutes after that, I had completed my other task when the same number rang in. I answered. By this time I was curious (and a bit annoyed, honestly, for the lack of voicemail–that’s just rude) about what could be so important that someone called 3 times in less than 30 minutes. 

The caller was from a web company that “distributes content” and which monetizes that content through advertising and pays the “contributors” a share of that advertising revenue. The guy on the phone talked about how he noticed that I had all these articles, etc., and that he thought I’d be a great fit for their “digital photography channel.” He explained that, essentially, they would post my articles and I would get a cut of the advertising. On the surface, this sounded like it had some potential. As you all know, I have been looking for alternative methods of monetizing my work especially since school is going to cut into my income here very shortly. So I told the guy to send me more info.

He did. He sent me two docs–one which described the site and how it worked and the other was the contract. And OMG what a contract. It had an entire section devoted to the contributor assigning all rights to the web company with it then granting the contributor the right to publish the material only in book or ebook form. Yeah…right. This wasn’t a line or two snuck into the contract–no, it was an entire numbered section with multiple sub-sections. Clearly, they wanted the rights and I could tell negotiations were right out.

I sent the guy a reply email this morning politely explaining that I didn’t think we’d be a good fit because the channel he described was really not for pros, who are my audience (it was maybe “prosumer” at best), and also that I advocate creatives defending their rights–not signing them away as his contract required (you’d think he’d know that if he had read my site and articles, as he had claimed). I ended with a line expressing my hope that he would amend the contract to be more equitable, but I am not really hopeful that he will do any such thing. 

I know I would have made money if I had agreed to that contract. I also know I could definitely use that money. But more importantly, I know that my price for selling out is one hell of a lot higher than a portion of advertising revenue from some About.com-wannabe site. 

This makes me think also of a Carl’s Jr. ad that is airing these days. If (big if, but this makes it look so) this is legitimate, then the woman must have signed a release (or else boy does she have a nice fat lawsuit). If she signed the release prior to dining, then she didn’t read it or else she would have known that something was up (if afterwards, then it’s even more sad).

The point is that we ALL get crappy contracts–bad releases that permit others to humiliate us for profit, rights-grabbing “agreements,” etc. We have to take the power we all have and say “no” to them. To do otherwise is to sell out, and usually for far too little…like the price of a burger.