Charging for online content… Digital Rights Evolution?
Digital Rights is a subject close to my heart. I see the internet as a great tool both for the sharing of information and communication – and over the past 15 years I’ve worked with some aspect – from it’s early days in universities to the current multimedia right incantation.
Paris Street Musician
Rupurt Murdoch’s decision to start charging for online news content across the Newscorp group[BBC], can in my opinion, can only be a good thing – but only it’s down to photographers to stand their ground in the repercussions of this announcement. We’ve recently seen The Guardian change it’s terms and conditions for freelance photographers, amounting to pretty much a rights grab,[British Journal of Photography.
Newscorp’s decision to implement a charging structure reflects the realisation that gathering and processing information cost money. In my mind there is a belief in the public mind that just because the Internet is available – the information on it is free. They generally have no knowledge of the cost of hosting large clusters of servers to host webpages, and similarly, they have generally no real appreciated of the costs involved in the processing of the information that they want so readily in newspapers/magazines/and websites. I don’t believe though they should have though.
The Internet provides a means of the two models working side-by-side- that is the free content model, and the pay-per-view content model. In the pay-per-view model, I see that the quality of the content and information will have to be significantly higher. Better in-depth stories, and higher quality photography.
Photographers need to be of the current developments in image licensing, and stand their ground in negotiations on usage rights and costs – making sure they are recompensed properly for their time, labour and equipment. Photography is the same as any other digital or printed content, indeed – it is the most powerful – a picture tells a 1000 words. Photography is also highly diluted. Cameras are everywhere from phones to CCTV. Never before has photography been so accessible to the public. As professionals, this is a good thing, as it means we have to raise our game and standards – but at the same time, it’s difficult to do when photography to the world to be easy.
This was highlighted to me by a couple who were talking about their wedding photographer. Generally they were happy, but they also didn’t have an understanding of the reasoning behind aspects such as why they couldn’t get the digital files from the photographer. I generally think that now, photographers should embrace giving their client digital files, in the format that they want to use it. People want images for face book, to email to friends etc. Yes, there are questions about quality control, but with careful timing it is possible to sell digital content, when it’s use will have less of an impact on the photographers potential sources of revenue.
In these recession hit times it is only down to photographers to stand their ground and provide their clients products that are tailored to them and making sure that licensing is working for them.
