A Call for Contracts!

Recently, I was giving a presentation, and we were discussing contracts, and someone in the audience mentioned Conde Nast's (heinous) one. They didn't suggest it was heinous, I did. 

I did, because I've read it. When you demand "All rights throughout the universe..." in your contract, the author who penned that is a pompous ass, period. Add onto it the pay of $350 for the day, and now you're just a huge pompous ass.

Then, someone else in the audience piped up, validating something I've known for many many years.

What's that you say?

(Continued after the Jump)

They said "I've done a fair amount of work for them, and I can tell you, my contract pays me much more than $350 an assignment."

Bingo! I knew it!

I've personally experienced the one off horrible contract proffer from more than one editorial (and corporate) client, only to raise my thoughtful objections to the terms, and get the more reasonable ones with better pay, and fewer rights demands. This was a few years ago, and at this point, 90+% of the time, I'm working with clients based upon my contract, negotiating to meet their needs. However, I've yet to see the elusive "other" Conde Nast contracts. You know, the ones who pay fair, only want "world", or "US", or "one time" rights?  It's a given that Annie's contract's not the same as the new guy's. But, where are those in-between Annie and the Newbie?

This holds true too for places like Time, Men's Journal(wink), Wired, Sports Illustrated, and so forth. So, this is my call for contracts.


Here's what I'll do. Send me your contracts. I will not reveal my sources. You can send it in anonymously from your gmail accounts set up just for that purpose, or you can send it with your contact information, so we can discuss it (privately). 

What I want to do is highlight the differences between the newbie-photographer, the work-horse photographer, the showcase-photographer, and so forth. Some of the language is standard, but the assignments rates and rights packages are no doubt different. That's the meat on the bone. 

If you have a sweet deal (higher percentages, etc) with Getty/Corbis/Alamy/Jupiter/et al, send it in, and others, please send in the standard/first-offer contracts, so I have a baseline of the latest contract.

If no one sends them in, then I'm off to other valuable postings. However, if I get the various ones in, I'll post the differences, which will help everyone out. Send them to me by clicking the "E-mail a topic Request" link over on the right, and let's see what you've got.

---

Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.