I have been in this road before many times. As a professional Director of photography it is a shame that Crooks not businessman take advantage to our art. I have dealt with companies like yourself with this type of treatment. What I usually do is to find a happy medium and just move on and not dwell in it. As for copyrights. You do own it when you you start push the button and since you have masters that goes in your favor 100%. As for videos I own everything thing, that I shoot. For clients wanting stock footage they pay extra or other request the want.

Good Luck. Im a fan of your work.

Gary

I’ve already gone down that road, my lawyer told me that I didn’t file my copyright within the specified amount of time for it to apply. He said I could probably press charges and win, but at most would pay for his fees, nothing else.

“if those pictures hadn’t been given to said manufacturer you picture wouldn’t have made the ad anyway, paid for even.”

This alone implies that Josh’s photos were given to the manufacturer either in an effort of good will toward Josh, or at Josh’s request/approval. Josh has clearly stated that wasn’t the case, and if it was truly done in good will, this blog post wouldn’t even have been written. Thus, the only conclusion is that the photos were given to the manufacturer without Josh’s knowledge or approval, which of course is the whole point of this blog post. As with many things in this world, the ends do not justify the means, especially when no photo credit was given to Josh in the end anyway. Simply adding it to his portfolio and moving on would be like me taking an ad from Ford in Motor Trend and adding it to my portfolio as if I took the photo, even though the photo can’t be traced back to me in any way as being the photographer.

Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups. Either you’re completely assuming facts here or you’re simply on the other side of the coin and trying to spread misinformation to make you or the people you represent look better. No matter what side I’m on (I of course happen to be on Josh’s side here), the plain and simple fact of the matter is even if he DID get paid for the shoot, that gives the “businessman” in this situation absolutely NO RIGHT to give the photos to a third party and let them use them as they wish. As Josh said, now all business from now will involve contracts, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that this specific situation is full of BS.

As for your comment about “a photoshop post production guy,” welcome to the world of professional photography. Perhaps your point-and-shoot or iPhone camera will do just fine for your needs, but the rest of the professional world requires talented people like Josh. This comment from you alone speaks volumes about what you know about Josh and the photography industry as a whole.

Not sure where you’re getting your details. But you are incorrect. The shoot wasn’t paid for, wasn’t compensated for, and there was no authorization for the picture to be used in the ad. The pictures were taken prior to the feature shoot of the car for the magazine as a sneak preview of the car before it went to SEMA.

You show your true ignorance by ignoring the facts and even suggesting I was even paid for them. And spamming forums? I posted this blog on a Photo forum to warn other photographers on how to avoid bad business practices. There are no names mentioned here, no links to any photos, nothing that directly relates to anyone.

As far as I’m concerned, I could be talking about anyone.

…and to the /other/ Joe… show me one magazine that has photos in it that haven’t been through post production editing. Your comment shows your ignorance of the industry. Any photographer worth his weight is a master in Photoshop.