Michael Sims jellicle-at-gmail.com |nyphp dev/internal group use| wrote:
Contractors that insist that they retain ownership of the code that I pay
them to produce... would not be hired by me. Nor would I hire a wedding
photographer who insisted that they owned the negatives to the pictures
that they took on my dime.
You just eliminated the majority of professional wedding photographers,
c.1990 (yes, I got married back then). Before the digital revolution,
control of reprints was an essential part of the business. You could of
course negotiate ownership of the negatives, but it changed the price of
the shoot to a more realistic (expensive) number than it would
otherwise have been.
I hired a celebrity wedding photographer because of his art, not his
performance. A big part of that was executed in the darkroom... owning
the prints was not especially of interest to me. Like someone else here
said... they may have the code (negatives) but they don't have the
architecture (can't make the magical images).
It's a different world today....and I point this out because most of the
law covering these issues was written "way back when" and really doesn't
fit too well anymore (like my wedding tux). But when you say :
Both situations suggest the contractor is planning to extort money from me at a later date, to make me pay twice for
the same work, and I find that rather slimy.
I have to disagree. It's a deal, and you are free to decline. The guy
has to make a living, so he can make it off reprints or the shoot.
Either way there's some risk, and some reward.
I can't see it as extortion or slimy unless you made a deal for other
than what you're gonna get.
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