Demotix

3. Grant of License

- A.By submitting any Material to the Website, you hereby grant to Demotix Ltd and its affiliates a worldwide, royalty-free, exclusive (subject to the provisions of clause 4 of these Terms of Business), transferable and non-revocable right and licence to use, reproduce, display publicly, modify, adapt, edit, publish, translate, distribute, perform, play, create derivative works from, exercise and sub-licence all associated and relevant rights (including intellectual property rights and publicity rights) with respect to your Material in any media whatsoever, whether now known, or developed in the future (the foregoing licence is granted for the entire respective terms of the relevant rights) and the right to enforce all such rights as though Demotix Ltd were the owner of the copyright in such Material;

4. Exclusivity

D.You agree that you will not grant any rights to any third parties which would conflict with the rights you have already granted to Demotix Ltd under this clause 4.

Ouch. Stupid as I may be, I’ll pass.

But, Stupid, it’s an agency and you get paid:

http://www.demotix.com/en/you

Basic, non-exclusive rights to your photos will sell for anything between $80 and $1,600 USD.

• Non-exclusive rights to your video: $500-600/minute
• Exclusive rights: whatever we can get. And some photos and videos can go for $100,000s.

In all cases, you get exactly 50%.The boring details are here Terms of Sale and here Terms of Business but basically:

• you retain the copyright
• we broker them exclusively across all spaces
• we split the fee

Hey, you like it, sign up! No need to follow my stupid lead!

who is this person behind the ‘stupid photograher’ moniker….?

judging from the contributions on the site, the terms seem to pose no problems for many people. quality/substance of the present entries may be questionable, but that may not hinder media outfits from being their ‘media partners’, and using it as a low-cost source for the odd story/photo or two. unfortunately, that form of competition is increasingly more apparent making it difficult for new and upcoming photojournalists to get their break (financially speaking). at the same time, there may be some gems that can be found here, especially from locations that are not as heavily covered by the established media outfits… providing a distribution outlet for those who are unable to break into the established media outfits and/or agenices. it will be interesting to see if the site is able to realise its business plan (?).

that was my initial reaction and was hoping to have a constructive discussion. i should probably have been more direct in mentioning that in my first post. but, it was quite late in the evening and was stupid about being lazy when i decided to post the link last night…

it seems like a strange business plan. they are hoping to profit from “citizen journalism” but “citizen journalists” have been used in part because they free, not because of their superior quality. So if a media organization is going to pay for something, pay the same rates as they would from an agency of professionals, why would they buy from this citizen agency? Besides, the way agencies syndicate through other agencies around the world, is there really a lack of material and coverage?

Could be legit, or could be some dude holed up in his mum’s basement with a bunch of lawyer buddies who wrote all that litigious contract bunk.

That #3 in the contract is a bit chilling. No way to back out if you’re unhappy, or if they decide to lower their “prices” to a nickel per license. And who are they? Where are they? English/Welsh is all I can fathom from the lengthy “terms”.

As of right now, I think I should be wearing one of those t-shirts that says, “I’m with stupid”.

jethro- apparently from UK. some guy called jonathan tepper. the link was passed on by a friend. it kinda grabs you by saying you retain copyright, then the other clauses kick in leaving you scratching your head.

i don’t know of an agency that would take your copyright… wires are a different story.