Publicity Photo Used to Illustrate “A Decade of Destruction”
November 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment
As a professional visual artists we spend lots of time talking about the end use of our work. When estimating an assignment or stock licensing agreement we always want to know how will the media we create be used. Does it make sense to charge the same licensing fee for an image used on a billboard along Highway 101 in Silicon Valley vs. a thumbnail on a website that gets 10 hits a month? No.
When I saw a SanDisk publicity photo being used to illustrate Newsweek’s story, “A Decade of Destruction” and then again on the MSNBC.com homepage with the headline, “Decade in Review, How the Internet Ruined Everything” I laughed out loud because I think nobody at SanDisk could have predicted this. In my opinion it is a great product photo. Here is my best guess as to how it happened.
Here is the photo published at Newsweek.com:
Screengrab of Newsweek.com from November 12, 2009
Here is same article on MSNBC.com article with a slightly different headline:
Screen-grab of MSNBC.com home page on November 12, 2009
A glance at the credit line indicates the photo was provided by Business Wire via Getty Images. Here is the link to the image with original caption at Getty Images and a screen grab below: http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/51120725/Getty-Images-Publicity
Photographer John Canning was in Libya in 1994 when he created this image with Tourag nomads. He was trekking across the Sahara desert shooting photos with author Richard Bangs who was writing an article for Well Traveled on Slate.com. For this image, Canning thoughtfully setup and positioned his tech gear (logos are all perfectly position for Brunton portable power system, laptop, Lowepro camera bags, Pelican cases, and Indiana Jones’esque hat). He downloaded the images from his Nikon DSLR while the Touregs’ gathered around. Canning handed Bangs the camera who snapped the photo.
SanDisk got their hands on the photo via Canning. At some point down the road, either SanDisk or maybe one of their reps, used this photo along with a press release about something or other which was picked up by the Business Wire. Business Wire is in cahoots with Getty Images and anyone searching the Getty Images site will be served up Business Wire imagery when applicable.
Along comes a Newsweek story and the photo editor searches Getty Images. Viola’…. the perfect shot arises… a perfect juxtaposition of the old and new; rich and poor; black and white. Was the photographer compensated for these uses? I have no idea. The moral of the story is that when an image does out on a wire service, kiss it goodbye as everyone will get a cheap and essentially unlimited piece of it. If you are the shooter, make sure you’re compensated for unlimited use on a wire service.
One of my images was sent to the Associated Press some years ago and published well over 1000 times. I never got a dime for it.
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