3 Common Misconceptions from Photo Buyers

These misconceptions come up because most photo buyers work with students/hobbyists and amateur photographers and not a professional photographer.

A professional photographer may seem much more expensive, but their many reasons why they are which I'll explain in another blog post. On this blog post I'll explain the common misconceptions that are caused from the other non-pro photographers that allows photo buyers to push them around to such low costing photography gigs and other demands can cost a lot of money to pros such as the following...

1. All Rights or Print Rights...
• All rights, a professional photographer will not give this away without a cost and generally a cost to all, but equal ownership of the copyright. The misconception here is non-pro photographers will give this free, at no cost. Just remember, a photographer creates a copyrighted image automatically when they hit that shutter button on their cameras and they own the rights 100% (unless its work-for-hire). 
• Another misconception is when you the buyer pays a photographer for a job you assume you are getting the rights to use the photos in any way you feel like, this is completely incorrect. You pay the photographer for their time to create the images, basically the cost of labor. When photographers create an image its just like creating a product. If you paid someone to build something unique and artistic you may assume ownership, but most professional photographers they have in their terms of service that you are hiring freelance not work-for-hire services. So any images the photographer create will be the photographer's ownership in copyright, automatically. Also if the terms of service stats the photographer retains copyright, they retain this unless they have another contract stating they are not.
• Print rights. I understand the reasoning behind photo buyers wanting the print rights, to save a lot of money. Just keep in mind what you are losing from doing all of the printing on your own or even hiring another source/print lab to do it for you, you will lose the artist/creator's opinion and expertise on how the prints should look like which may seem nothing, but trust me as a photographer myself I know a bad print can be done from a good print. There are many different types of printing paper, and there is tons of different methods to printing. Many pro photographers will know how to provide a great quality print of their own work.
2. Hiring a Non-Professional Photographer
• Just in case you're unsure what I mean by non-professional photographers I mean student photographers, amateurs, and hobbyists. 
• You are hiring individuals who generally couldn't care less about the industry and respect towards professional photographers. 
• When hiring a non-pro photographer you will be risking everything normally, or at least taking a huge risk of not being happy. Of course this could happen with a professional but a professional has a lot more to lose, a non-pro photographer has nothing to lose. Is this worth saving a few hundred or a thousand dollars, you may still say yes, but if its your wedding where its just planned to be your only wedding in your entire life... worth the risk then? I understand this would depend how important your needs to have a perfect experience with photo services, a professional that has reputation to protect and grow, plus has an official business will give you a much better chance in receiving your services in perfect condition.
3. Research, Research, and Research some more! 
On hiring a professional photographer. Not all pro photographers are the same. This is a common misconception from buyers. Just because the buyer is used to one way with one photographer the buyer assumes its the same for the next photographer which is completely untrue, some photographers may work similar fashions but all of them work differently. Especially when working with a non-pro photographer and then working with a pro photographer as they are both very different beasts. The differences are literally everything, from the style of the photos and quality of photos to even the terms of service and business models to customer service styles. Such as some offer print rights, and some don't. Some include digital copies of your photos with a watermark logo, some don't. It's just how it is, you may ask to change some terms with some photographers and some will say "okay" depending the job they're getting and some won't.

Tips to When "Buying" Copyrights From Photographers.

There are a lot of assumption and misconceptions from buyers/clients working with professional photographers. 

Common Misconceptions are:

1. When paying a photographer to do a job, the client gets "ALL RIGHTS".
• This is incorrect in most cases because professional photographers are generally freelance photographers where they are NOT under a "work-for-hire" contract. When they agree to this type of contract then anything they create during the duration of employment its copyrights are automatically owned by the company owner. Generally, most professional photographers will not agree to this unless they include the cost of copyright ownership/transfer was included to the cost of the project they are being hired for.
2. When paying a photographer for "ALL RIGHTS" you get all rights.
• Depending on the contract, this can or become true, but generally a professional photographer will attempt to negotiate and educate the buyer/client on the actual value of a copyright and transferring ownership. I can give you all rights, only if you pay "X" amount, generally if its all rights. I, as the photographer, would either ask equal ownership 50/50 or a transfer of ownership and in most cases the party (buyer) requesting "all rights" cannot afford all rights, equal or not. Equal rights can cost about half to 75% of the cost of transferring ownership, but this would vary to photographer's discretion, as mentioned before industry standard of a copyright start at $1000 USD for each photo.
3. The value of a copyright.
• This misconception is a huge one. People assume its just a photo, it has no real value long term, it only has 1 use and short-term. WRONG! Owner a copyright of a photo allows the owner of that photo to do anything from selling the photographic prints, to printing them on t-shirts, mugs, etc. Basically the use of merchandising, and especially advertising uses photos for commercial gain, ether directly or indirectly. Such as with sales of the photos' use in merchandising, this is a direct for profit motive, and for advertising its to give the cause/company indirect exposure from the image and to hopefully have a direct impact into sales/revenue, etc. $1000 USD for each photo, is very, very small price as you the owner can use it pretty much in any way you'd like and however long you like. Heck, if you're not using it or want to allow other companies to use it you can license it to other companies for extra revenue as the copyright owner. The value of a copyright is limitless! Don't under value the copyright in any market, but especially in the photo market where photography is largely important to advertising most importantly. No photos, no easy way to advertise. 
4. Licensing
• This is no different than music, stock photography, stock video, stock everything. When working with a photographer that does not include a license with cost of labor to creation of the photos you as the client requested, please be prepared for the cost of licensing or purchasing the transfer of copyright ownership if available. We as photographers generate any photo from our cameras that photo becomes a copyright and Intellectual Property (IP) of that photographer (and company owner). Just like you if you ever created any products, you own the IP. These prices vary at photographer's discretion, I charge around $60-$300 per image for 6 month terms of use depending the usage. I also have bulk discounts and discounts for longer terms to encourage more licensing. Professional photographer's rely on licensing revenue, sometimes largely, please keep this in mind it keeps our business alive and going by respecting the licensing.
5. Another and Lastly Misconception: Working with Photographers that are Not Professional Photographers.
• What do I mean, you may ask? Basically any photographer that does not follow the above like handing out copyrights, like free candy in a park, are not professional photographers. As a buyer/client in photography be very, very careful, question the quality they have displayed and were shown to you, question their references. When hiring a photographer be prepared to having a good artistic eye for photography to find a great quality photographer. You don't need to learn how to take the images to truly see a quality image, just know the differences of low and high quality imagery. 
• Don't have the budget for a professional photographer, you as the buyer will risk a screw up by hiring an hobbyist or amateur, or even student just because they are desperate for work. But note they are learning on the job, they are very likely to screw up on that job or take longer than a professional photographer would have. A professional is generally a guarantee you'd get what you want if you did your proper amount of researching that professional to meet your needs.

This is not legal advice, this is purely from experience within the photo industry as a professional photographer.