The girl who works for me also has her own side business  creating digital prints which she sells on Etsy. She received the following inquiry:

"I am contacting you from SHOP magazine in Sydney, AU, as we would love to feature one of your prints in our Feb 20 issue.  Can we please request a high-res image? We will of course caption it with your price and stockist details, so our readers can purchase from you directly."

Our question is, if she sends digital file of the image with her company watermark will her print be protected enough as to not be reproduced.  We are not sure if this is a digital or print magazine.  Also, the magazine seems to only feature clothing, of which her digital print is not.  Should she charge for them to show it or look at it as free advertising. Anything else she should investigate?

Thanks. 

Julie

I would look into both US copyright and Australian. I don't know whether or not both copyrights, the US, or the Oz, would apply. My suggestion is to talk to a lawyer (IANAL). Some Aus copyright info:http://copyright.com.au/get-information
http://www.copyright.org.au/find-an-answer/

The fact is that it won't matter about watermarks. Those ignorant of copyright laws, or those who just want to flout it, are always more than happy to use watermarked images. The point about using watermarks however is to reduce it (since honest people tend to be less likely to use something if it's watermarked) and to make it easier to defend if you discover it's been used without permission. The fact is that nothing you can do prevents rip-offs, all you can do is attempt to reduce problems by registering the copyright (see US copyrights) and hoping you don't have to defend yourself later.

After spending a couple of years battling plagiarism and copyright issues, in the end I gave up. Too much time worrying about it, not enough time spent producing new works. Protect it as best you can; defend yourself if you discover rip-offs; don't bother actively looking for it more than is necessary to your stress levels.

I assume that any magazine will have a photo rights release of some sort, a contract between the copyright owner and the mag. In which case, ask for a copy.

Clothing magazines don't necessarily only feature clothing. I tried looking for the magazine website, and I think this is the one:
http://www.globalblue.com/corporate/ourproducts/marketing-services/media/shop-magazine/
If so, it looks like they cover lots of different things and might have both digital and print versions. It looks pretty big so they should indeed have some sort of release form for photos.

Lastly: on the issue of charging them or not, it may be that in their heads they're requesting a freebie in exchange for advertising. That's how the above phrasing of the request sounds to me. There are a couple of issues: are they looking to place an image to accompany an article? Or are they planning on featuring her as a new and interesting shop? If the former, I think it would make more sense to request payment for her print as a stock image (and if used as 'stock' make sure to find out if they are just using it once, or want to make it something they can pull out repeatedly - I know I did this for my arts journo job, if we found a good creative commons pic we didn't have to pay for, it would get re-used). If the latter, then free advertising in an article is worth more and you probably can't charge for that anyway because then it's content-as-advertising (might be against some local ad rules or something).

I generally think that asking for payment is a good thing: if they think they can get away with not paying you, they will. Besides which, this is no different than someone on Etsy asking for a custom listing for a product. You don't give away a custom listing for free!

Thank Na. I passed on your answer and encouraged her to sign up here to ask more questions.  Actually SHOP Till You Drop is the magazine. We looked at their website and unless they are going in another direction with their newest issue they are all about fasion and makeup. The person who contacted her does work for them, at least her email matches with their website.

Thanks. 

Julie

Ok, my apologies, guessed wrong. This is the correct website:
http://www.bauer-media.com.au/shop_til_you_drop.htm
They have a list of rates on the left side which is useful for knowing how much they usually charge for ads. Their advertising terms are linked at the bottom of the page. It's a rather large mag company, offering some of the most well-known Aussie publications. So yeah, they're also going to have standard photographic release forms and contracts and whatnot.

At the very least I'd enquire about a copyright release form and see what they say.

Seems kind of odd to me.  I would want to know more about how they plan to use the image personally.  I also think they should pay for it.  They are charging for their product why should they expect others to give freely.  As Na mentioned they should have some type of release form they would want you to sign if they are a legit magazine and above board.

Seems kind of odd to me.  I would want to know more about how they plan to use the image personally.  I also think they should pay for it.  They are charging for their product why should they expect others to give freely.  As Na mentioned they should have some type of release form they would want you to sign if they are a legit magazine and above board.

It's not all that odd. It totally depends on what the image is of and what content accompanies it. Again, it doesn't have to be 'related' to their overall content (fashion, etc), only the article that goes with it and/or if it's individually highlighting this specific artist. Heck, it could be an article on Etsy itself and the different stuff available to buy. Also, there are heaps of people who will request an exchange of a service/product for 'free advertising'. All you have to do is browse freelancing ads and the like to see plenty of 'offers' like that. It can be anything from 'do it for your portfolio' to 'free ads' to 'get a percentage of profits because we're a start up'... etc.

The last one I actually had said to me only *after* applying for a freelance role that specifically avoided any mention of money, except in the required field on the job site which asks for a fixed fee amount (which was appropriately filled in, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered applying). They were expecting journalism-level research-heavy interviews with internationally renown authors and/or research on them, in short novel form. And blissfully stated that as they were start-up they would not be paying anyone anything outside of some ridiculously small percentage of profits. When I said that wasn't good enough and I wanted a proper per-hour or fixed fee payment, they pointed to their current stable of (student or graduate) writers and said they were happy, so why won't you do it? Anyway, don't be surprised at how many people out there think 'portfolio/advertising' work somehow equates with getting paid. And how many people who are inexperienced, new and/or unsure, who will agree to it.

Here's some examples:
https://twitter.com/forexposure_txt

It wouldn't surprise me at all that big national magazines would request same, because hey, they're national, therefore national exposure without the exorbitant cost of their advertising rates.

Ultimately though I agree that more information about what they're planning would be useful.

I work in Advertising and often use work from artists. If they are asking for a high res image it most likely will be for print not digital. (Although they may make a low res version if they put it on their website or have an e-magazine.) If the work is already created, like it sounds like it is, then appropriate credits are usually printed with the work. The benefit of the artist is that she can get her work out to a larger number of people and that could gain exposure. Because the work is already created, I wouldn't expect to be compensated. With something like this it is more of an editorial image where technically the payment is in the extra exposure. However, you can most certainly ask. If they were to come back and ask for new work, then yes, payment is appropriate. It would be a commission at that point. Basically it comes down to if your friend thinks there is value in having her work published in a magazine.

She offered it to them with her watermark, but they declined. They want the drawing no background color (which is has a blue background). She is concerned it can be downloaded and printed out if she supplies them one without the watermark. Any thoughts?

Julie

I work in Advertising and often use work from artists. If they are asking for a high res image it most likely will be for print not digital. (Although they may make a low res version if they put it on their website or have an e-magazine.)

Isn't it easier to make a low res version for digital by having the high res first? I am aware that in the web design community, you always ask for the highest res so that you can resize smaller without losing too much quality.

She offered it to them with her watermark, but they declined. They want the drawing no background color (which is has a blue background). She is concerned it can be downloaded and printed out if she supplies them one without the watermark. Any thoughts?

You should re-read my post. I noted that there were plenty of people using my images *with watermarks*. If they are ignorant of copyrights or don't care, they use it.

Actually several people I contacted about having the image removed (with or without watermark) would often state they were doing me a favour because it was 'free advertising'.... The point being that people do NOT CARE about watermarks or copyrights.

Here's a thought: what is stopping people from printing out and using the images she posts on her Etsy listings? They have the watermark yes, but people can still print them out and use them. Heck, you can still copy/paste and save as a digital file! A watermark doesn't stop people; it just gives you more defense when claiming someone else is using your work.

If she's so worried about people using her work without permission then she either needs to get used to the idea that there will always be a possibility of plagiarism - as I said, I gave up attempting to stem the tide, and heck Pinterest alone makes it tricky - or she needs to simply say no when it comes to other people using it. Once you post a photo online, once it goes in print, you have no way to control who does what with it. This isn't to say you shouldn't monitor its use, but if you're that skittish about it, it's best not to post anything at all.

(To be fair: due to the large amount of plagiarism of my photos, I've removed all of the ones on my portfolio and instead left up the Youtube videos. Although the vids can also be plagiarised, at least there are fewer of them and easier to track. The photos on my Flickr page have all been watermarked considerably after several months of re-editing, and the more popularly plagiarised ones have more watermarks than the others. All photos I've hosted on my own site and have been 'linked' by others - they don't upload their own version to their site, but rather just use the URL for the photo hosted by me - have been as much as possible replaced with an image that says "this photo has been copied from X" and/or the site has been blacklisted from linking to anything from my web host.... As you can see it's very time consuming just to do this much, and there's no way I've caught it all. Pinterest does cause me a problem because they cache the images, meaning if I've deleted it on my site, they still keep the photos anyway. The sum of it is that if you're selling your stuff online and post a watermarked image, you've broken the floodgates already. I tried stemming it but at the end of the day it was just too stressful to deal with ignorant/rude people who didn't get that 'free advertising' does not equal 'getting permission for using my work'.)

For her reference, she might find the following useful. A search for posts on a site that is dedicate to discussing plagiarism (US, so it is about her rights under US law). It has quite a few posts regarding photos.
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/search-results/?cx=002953102929828264025%3Aogxueykiyny&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&q=watermark&sa=Search&siteurl=www.plagiarismtoday.com%2F&ref=&ss=2111j462723j13

This post in particular has some good info:
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/06/17/11-free-copyright-tools-for-photographers-and-artists/

This one talks about the fact that these days watermarks can be easily removed just by using digital editing!
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2013/08/01/how-to-ensure-your-watermarks-are-secure/