What's happening?
Lately, there have been an increasing number of social media posts questioning whether or not an event venue can request images from their clients. As a bride, you have found the perfect wedding venue, you've selected your date, signed your contract, and now are preparing for a beautiful day. All is well. Except, it's not. You didn't thoroughly read through the contract and it clearly stated you are required to share your final wedding photo/video gallery with the venue for their own use. Putting a similar clause in event venue contracts is becoming an increasingly popular play. Are you actually allowed to share your images with them? Absolutely not, here's why...
COPYRIGHT LAWS
Copyright is the EXCLUSIVE legal right, given to an originator to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or music material, and to authorize others to do the same (Oxford Dictionary). Inevitably, copyright law is designed to protect the creator of the original material from use without the creator's permission.
For photographers, this means we are the originator, or creator, of the photos in your final gallery. Neither client, nor venue, owns any copyright to an image, unless purchased. As photographers we give AUTHORIZATION to the bride and groom to use our images through our contracts. Each photographer will have their own separate limits per their individual contract. Be sure to read the contract in place thoroughly to ensure proper use of images.
When a venue tells a bride and groom, they "must give the venue their final photo/video gallery", they are planning to, potentially, participate in UNAUTHORIZED use of a photographer's images. Ultimately, the venue is setting themselves up for a lawsuit! Unfortunately, you, as the bride and groom, could go down too for breaching the contract you have in place with your photographer.
Why do venues request images from clients?
Venues are trying to find a loop hole around purchasing 'commercial rights' from the photographer. When venues purchase commercial rights, from the original photographer, it gives them the ability to use the images in order to promote their business to gain more sales, or use of the venue. A venue may also ask for a 'complete copyright buyout' which gives the venue ownership of the copyright of an image. At that point, the photographer may no longer use the purchased images in anyway. Not even for their own advertisement.
Purchasing commercial rights can be expensive. Sometimes thousands of dollars PER image and complete copyright buyouts, even more. But when you think that a wedding venue could make MILLIONS of dollars off of ONE image from a professional photographer, a few thousand is worth it in the long haul.
In a nutshell,
Do not allow a venue to demand use of your images in a contract, email, or verbally. As your photographer, I am more than happy to handle the situation, by discussing copyright laws directly with the venue and offering commercial use rights (once approved by my clients), so refer them to me. Most importantly, save yourself from a lawsuit and DO NOT sign a contract that requests use of images you do not own the rights to!
