Thursday 9 August 2012

Photo 3 Scam - withholding copyright

Be careful if you're thinking about hiring Photo 3 Solutions for your wedding or portfolio photographic need, make sure you've done your research and found out who's really behind the company.

Photo 3 have been associated with a number of scams, from overpriced wedding packages to dodgy modelling agencies to withholding copyright from paying customers.

Photo 3 won't tell you outright, but if you hire them to take photographs for you, you won't end up owning the copyright to your pictures. If questioned, they'll tell you that this is perfectly normal behavious for a photographer, but this is absolutely not the case.

If you pay a photographer to take photographs for you, then you are paying for their time and the fruits of their labour - in other words, the photos they take.

So what does it mean when Photo 3 refuses to hand over copyright?

Firstly, it means he can use YOUR photographs wherever he wishes, for life. That means for promotion, to sell them - he could print them and use them on posters or sell a CD full of your pictures to anyone he wishes.

Secondly, it means you don't have the right to use YOUR OWN PICTURES. That means that if you want copies of them - as prints, or digital, he can make you pay through the nose - and will.

So be careful if you're thinking of using Photo 3 to take your photographs and make sure you read the small print.

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