Copyright issues on similar photos

craig · Nov 20, 2007

It is my fault. I am easily confused. Clearly you are interested in making this a learning experience for the critters, but you are not willing to give RTW the best photos? At this point in time you have worked something out with them?

At any rate I love being on a bicycle. I am super jealous of your soon to be journey.

Love & Bass

nancy sv · Nov 20, 2007

We haven't worked anything out formally with RTW. We have just decided to choose our photos very carefully and not put anything on their website that we might want later for articles or books or whatever. It's a pity, really, but what can we do?

You can read about our journey at www.familyonbikes.com (It still says we are leaving in 1 1/2 years, but we're really leaving in six months. We just made the decision to go and haven't gotten the website updated uet.)

Snyder · Nov 20, 2007

Im from Alaska there is alot of great thing to take photos of.

nancy sv · Nov 20, 2007

We will be pedaling through a lot of miles of Alaska!!! I'm sure we'll get some great shots.

craig · Nov 20, 2007

Ok. Read the website. Have to say that once you get to WY email me. You guys are on a positive journey and I would be proud to help in any way.

Personally I would give these guys your best work. Certainly goes against my business ideals, but I think you are on to a positive message that should be above personal gain. 9,300 miles is no joke. It is your journey and I think the world needs to be involved. Let me know if that makes any sense.

Love & Bass

monkeykoder · Nov 21, 2007

My solution would be... Take enough pictures that you can send them some of you best and still have plenty that you don't give them.

nancy sv · Nov 21, 2007

the thing is - judging from our last trip we will have more than enough photos!!!! We posted over 1000 photos on our online journal during our last trip - 80% of which are stunning. And yet, we still had 2000 more photos that are just stashed away and nobody will see them at all. And a lot of them are really, really nice - it's just that they aren't as good as the others. It's those photos that we'll send to RTW.

nancy sv · Nov 21, 2007

craig said:
Ok. Read the website. Have to say that once you get to WY email me. You guys are on a positive journey and I would be proud to help in any way.

Personally I would give these guys your best work. Certainly goes against my business ideals, but I think you are on to a positive message that should be above personal gain. 9,300 miles is no joke. It is your journey and I think the world needs to be involved. Let me know if that makes any sense.

Love & Bass

Thank you so much!! Where in WY are you? As much as we want to pass through Boise on our way down, my son REALLY wants to go to Yellowstone, so I suspect we will go to Glacier, pass through Montana, the Yellowstone, then into Western Wyoming. Again - that route may change, but that's what we are thinking now.

jstuedle · Nov 21, 2007

Hi Nancy. Sorry I come to this discussion late. Please, PLEASE read up on copyright law. You as the artist own the copyright. You have sole title and rights to it until you release those rights. You could enter into a contract whereby you retain the copyright but release the images you provide for RTW's limited or unlimited use. The use could be outlined in the contract. As a photographer, I want, no I need to retain all copyrights to my work as sort of my retirement investment. If RTW is unwilling to enter into such a contract, I would simply part ways, post on your site as you did last year, and write a book to reach those you want to reach. You apparently will have two marvelous adventures, the start of a great series. Maybe write a script for a DVD and have a sideshow of your images. I know you are not doing this to get rich. But it would be nice to recoup expenses and maybe get a start on next years adventure.

nancy sv · Nov 22, 2007

Thanks John! I totally see what you are saying, and we seriously thought about parting ways over this. However, in the end we decided we would give them photos that are good, but not of a quality that we could realistically do anything with. We all end up with a ton of those photos - and nobody ever even sees them. They are nice snapshots, but certainly not of the quality that we could possibly sell. Those are the ones we will put on the RTW website. Ideally, RTW would have agreed to unlimited use of our photos. If they had done that, we would happily have put our best photos there. But they didn't, so we'll work around it. It's a shame, and ultimately it's the kids that will lose out, but we do have to consider our well-being too.