Black Friday? Try, "You Get What You Pay For" Friday!

I know I'm not seeing double. I am seeing stupidity and cheapskates in action.

An interesting set of ads arrived here at Photo Business News & Forum headquarters.

Syms, a place for discounted suits and so forth, and Guideposts, a Christian publication, both used this same image at the same time in their outreach. One to sell clothes, the other to sell salvation.

This isn't the first time one person has been used for different organizations at the same time. Both Dell and Gateway were using a young college-aged girl to sell back-to-school computers, as ASMP showed here.

(Continued, with Sym's and Guidepost use samples, after the Jump)

Syms, who's tagline is "where an educated consumer is our best customer", must be in need of some education about the risks of Royalty Free imagery. Specifically, from places like Jupiter Images, and inmagine.com. Both are selling this photo (at right), either as an individual RF sale, or, as one image on a CD of 104 images with a "Christmas" theme, for just under $500. The image, originally available through Comstock, is sold through Jupiter Images here, and Inmagine here.

What is laughable, of course, is that Inmagine's tagline for their site is "Imagine the Difference". Guess not only is there no difference between them and Jupiter, but also, no difference between the key image for both these marketing pieces.

Guidepost, who used the same image on their cover, sports the tagline "True Stories of Hope & Inspiration". For whom? Clearly not the creator of this image, who's only hoping you paid for this as a one-off license (not likely). This issue's headline is "Let Guideposts Lighten Your Load This Holiday Season!", or, perhaps try "Let Guideposts lighten this photographer's wallet with this issue!".

So, here's the Sym's postcard mailer:


And here's the Guidepost mailing:


In Jupiter Images' License Information, it says " JUPITERIMAGES requests the copyright notice “© [insert current year] JupiterImages Corporation” appear adjacent to the Image(s) or on a credit page."

A few clicks of the mouse found this image on both sites, with no problem, yet, neither use lists the requested photo credit. Oh well. However, Comstock (or the photographer) probably owns the copyright to this image, and thus, denoting as above would be a mis-statement.

No doubt the creator of these pieces had the Christmas RF disk sitting around, and they probably laid the design out, and billed the client for a stock photo, pocketing the profit, and nothing goes to the photographer. Once again, photographers get a lump of coal, and the ad agency or publication pockets the dough.

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