If You Shoot It.
You own it.
Phil Collins and his bandmates just sold their music rights for over $300 million. The reason they could do that is because they owned the rights to their own music. The reason they owned their rights is because they never signed them away in the first place.
Luckily, if you’re a creative working for yourself, you own your rights as well.
As an artist, and in this case, photographers fall into that category, if you shoot it, you own it.
With photography that’s as simple as pushing a button. When you push the button it is yours, even if it’s just sitting on a card in your camera. The only way you stop owning it is by signing a contract that transfers that ownership to another party.
Your work has value. That’s why publishers and agencies demand that you sign away your rights as a condition to working for them.
Think about it, they’re in business to make money. If they’re paying you to create something for them, they’re going to sell it to someone else. That’s after anything they publish themselves. That’s the only reason they need to own your work outright. They don’t need to own your copyright just to publish your picture in a newspaper. That’s what licensing fees are for.
