The fine print
As some of you may know, I serve as the "art director" for a one-man art department at the San Francisco offices of BrainDead Systems, formerly Flatline, Comatose, Torpor & Drowse. FCT&D, prior to its 2003 merger with Senescent Technologies, used to purchase equipment and software for my shop, but not no more. None of my work-related expenses are compensated.
Since 2003 I have been a customer of an online photo service I'll call "schlockstockimages.com" (I see that this is rendered onscreen as a legitimate URL. Don't bother, really). When they were a young, struggling service, their inventory was cheap: US 50¢ per image. As the company matured, and particularly after they were acquired a few years back by a consortium dominated by Muammar al-Gaddafi, Kim Jong-il, Dick Cheney and the Koch Brothers, the prices rose rather steeply, and you know, I didn't have a philosophical problem with that. I made out like a bandit those first couple of years, and the photographers were probably getting at most a dime per image from me. They deserved more. These days the fifty-cent images run between US $8 and $15 (and much higher, but I don't go there). I pay about a hundred dollars a year to keep a hand in, and to be able to snag the occasional picture for a project that I can't address from my backlist.
Back in June I get an email from SchlockStock: introducing a new "subscription" model in two flavors, Bronze and Gold. Each offers 250 downloads/month. Bronze gives the subscriber access to about half the inventory; Gold to something north of 90%. For new subscribers, SchlockStock offers a twofer: buy a one-month Bronze sub for $199; receive a second month free. Well! Five hundred images for two hundred bucks! Forty cents an image! Good times! I sign. I download. All to the good.
Recently I receive a phone message from a SchlockStock sales rep. I return it this morning. He's pitching a different subscription model: about $90/month for fifty images/month on a one-year contract. This, I observe, seems less enticing than my present twofer, or even than a onefer. Yes, says the rep, but I may not have noticed the fine print on my licensing agreement: my downloaded images must be used in a given project before the expiry of a given month's subscription, otherwise the usage rights are rescinded. Provided the downloaded files are incorporated into a project during the specified period, the customer retains his rights.
I acknowledged that I had inexplicably overlooked this sentence in paragraph 46 of the licensing boilerplate, and that I might have hesitated to consent to these terms had they been more conspicuously alluded to in the pitch. The flack mentioned that he did not represent the enforcement side of the house.
"How fortunate," I told him, "that I employed all of June's 250 downloads in a project I have called SchlockStock Bronze Contact Sheet: The Origins, and that I am presently at work on the sequel, SchlockStock Bronze Contact Sheet: The Reckoning, don't you think?"
He repeated that he had nothing to do with the company's image police.
The terms of the new subscription model struck me when I signed on digitally as too good to be true. I now know that they were indeed. Fortunately, it's unlikely that my low-profile work product, produced for and consumed mainly in-house, will ever draw the attention of the SchlockStock's legal arm.
cordially,
Since 2003 I have been a customer of an online photo service I'll call "schlockstockimages.com" (I see that this is rendered onscreen as a legitimate URL. Don't bother, really). When they were a young, struggling service, their inventory was cheap: US 50¢ per image. As the company matured, and particularly after they were acquired a few years back by a consortium dominated by Muammar al-Gaddafi, Kim Jong-il, Dick Cheney and the Koch Brothers, the prices rose rather steeply, and you know, I didn't have a philosophical problem with that. I made out like a bandit those first couple of years, and the photographers were probably getting at most a dime per image from me. They deserved more. These days the fifty-cent images run between US $8 and $15 (and much higher, but I don't go there). I pay about a hundred dollars a year to keep a hand in, and to be able to snag the occasional picture for a project that I can't address from my backlist.
Back in June I get an email from SchlockStock: introducing a new "subscription" model in two flavors, Bronze and Gold. Each offers 250 downloads/month. Bronze gives the subscriber access to about half the inventory; Gold to something north of 90%. For new subscribers, SchlockStock offers a twofer: buy a one-month Bronze sub for $199; receive a second month free. Well! Five hundred images for two hundred bucks! Forty cents an image! Good times! I sign. I download. All to the good.
Recently I receive a phone message from a SchlockStock sales rep. I return it this morning. He's pitching a different subscription model: about $90/month for fifty images/month on a one-year contract. This, I observe, seems less enticing than my present twofer, or even than a onefer. Yes, says the rep, but I may not have noticed the fine print on my licensing agreement: my downloaded images must be used in a given project before the expiry of a given month's subscription, otherwise the usage rights are rescinded. Provided the downloaded files are incorporated into a project during the specified period, the customer retains his rights.
I acknowledged that I had inexplicably overlooked this sentence in paragraph 46 of the licensing boilerplate, and that I might have hesitated to consent to these terms had they been more conspicuously alluded to in the pitch. The flack mentioned that he did not represent the enforcement side of the house.
"How fortunate," I told him, "that I employed all of June's 250 downloads in a project I have called SchlockStock Bronze Contact Sheet: The Origins, and that I am presently at work on the sequel, SchlockStock Bronze Contact Sheet: The Reckoning, don't you think?"
He repeated that he had nothing to do with the company's image police.
The terms of the new subscription model struck me when I signed on digitally as too good to be true. I now know that they were indeed. Fortunately, it's unlikely that my low-profile work product, produced for and consumed mainly in-house, will ever draw the attention of the SchlockStock's legal arm.
cordially,
