Comes Around. As anybody who is over 20 minutes old knows, this is the most true of all the adages. And last evening, it came true for me
. Please allow me to share.
As you know, I just shot the American Rottweiler Club's National Specialty, my 6th National in the past 7 years. Last evening, I received an email from the editor of a new Rottie magazine, Total Rottweiler Magazine (notice that it's acronym is TRM) asking me for copies of the major placements from the National for which they would be delighted to give me a by-line. Oh, and they needed those images by this Thursday.
Now, my contract with ARC has a clause in it that states that "official" photos from the National (meaning formals but not candids) could not be sold or given to any publication prior to appearing in the ARC Newsletter, ARK.
Some history on that clause, in 2002, I shot my first ARC National and, coincidentally, we started publishing The Rottweiler Magazine (TRM). So, we felt that we would be doing the clubs a favor if we ran the photos in TRM along with a 12-page article promoting the National. For free of course. As our contribution to the breed.
Well, the Board of Directors of ARC came after us like banshees claiming that we had violated their policy (not in print) and used the photos illegally. They also claimed that we denied access to the photos to the other publication at that time, The Rottweiler Quarterly. Once they found out that we had, indeed, offered the photos to TRQ -- also at no charge -- and that we had not known about the club's desire to publish first in ARK, the issue died down. Until the following year when the National was held in Cincinnati. I had been hired in January to shoot that show but by March, I still had not received the signed contract. I kept calling and emailing the show chair and finally, 3 weeks prior to the show, I was told that they had hired another photographer -- at the insistence of the ARC Board. When I inquired with ARC, the Board told me it was because I had violated their rules the year before. Since I had an oral commitment to shoot the show and an email offering the contract and mine accepting it, it only took about 48 hours for my attorney to convince the ARC Board that it was in their best interest to honor my contract and that if they had specific things they wanted -- or did not want -- me to do, those items should be spelled out in the contract.
So, now I'm being asked for photos I can't give to any publication but, since Linda and I publish a competitive magazine, I have to be careful to make sure it doesn't look like we're being anti-competitive. So, I sent her request to the ARC Board and asked them to explain the situation to the editor of the "OTHER" TRM. They did and I appeased her by offering to send her my candids. I also told her that if she received any formal images without my sign in them, that meant they had not been paid for and could not be used for advertising, web sites or anything else. With two days to go until she has to close the magazine, I'm sure there's a lot of scrambling being done to remove some stolen photos.
Like I said, what goes around, comes around (he says humming a little tune).
Jim
