Reply To: Let's Talk Copyright for Retouching Fauxtographs

[lolz]

“Nobody is going to “talk to an IP lawyer” over a hundred dollars. Not unless they work for a pack of skittles now”

Bwahahahahaaa!!! Thanks JJ, I literally did a spit-take on my computer screen. By the looks of the work, that’s what she SHOULD be charging.

 

I will add here, just a little. The photographer needs to cover their bases, because the fauxtographer could decide to lawyer up, and there’s no excuse you could give that would justify altering someone else’s work without a copyright release (and anyone that gives a copyright release deserves a good punch in the head) before a judge and allow this hack to walk away with quite a bit of your shit.

I have been asked to do the same thing for people and won’t touch it unless they have a copyright release, and even then I am not crazy about doing it. Copyright law is pretty evasive, and there’s not much precedent established as far as photography is concerned, since the digital age is relatively uncharted territory. I realize it’s a friend, and you just want to help out, but why didn’t the ‘friend’ hire you in the first place?

I would run, not walk, in the other direction, and chalk it up to lesson learned.

 

ETA- I did see the reason why you weren’t the original photographer, I must have missed it on first viewing.