Ask Anything :: Print Rights

In this time of new engagements and wedding planning, we are focusing on useful posts for newly engaged couples, which brings us to another Ask Anything post. Today we’re talking about Printing Rights…

A common and absolutely necessary question we get asked during consultations is “Can we print our photos?” or “Do we receive printing rights?” The answer is Yes. Yes, all of our couples receive full printing rights with their delivered engagement and wedding photos. So… what exactly does that mean? In short it means you have the right to enjoy your photos. You can print them, put them in frames and hang them on your walls. You can print canvases and give them as gifts to your parents. You can create an album or other neat photo pieces from places like Artifact Uprising. You can share them online too (with proper photo credit to your photographer of course), adding the digital photos to your Facebook page, wedding website or other social media platforms. The printing rights we provide our couples with gives them everything they could want in terms of usage. To keep it simple here’s a breakdown list of everything you can do with a Print Release:

• Order prints from your PASS gallery
• Buy prints from another quality online printing source if you choose
• Share them online (with proper photo credit to your photographers)
• Share your PASS gallery with family and friends and let them enjoy FREE DOWNLOADS!
• Make coffee table books or albums yourself
• Put your photos on a coffee mug, t shirt, or life-size cutout if you’re feelin’ it
• Hang them in your home, give photos as gifts and ENJOY them!

 

Now we have to talk about the difference between Printing Rights and Copyrights. Print Rights have been explained above. Copyright means something very different. Let’s use music as an example. If you buy a song, and download it to your iTunes you now own the rights to listen to that song, play it for guests at a party, dance to that song in your underwear, and ENJOY it. What you’re not allowed to do, is pretend that you wrote, played and/or sang the song yourself. You can’t alter the song in any way, changing the sound, lyrics and integrity of the song. You can’t sell the song to make a profit either. It makes sense when we put copyright in this context… who would actually try to digitally alter their favorite song!? You bought it because you love it the way it is! And you wouldn’t try to submit that song to a music contest or label company for profit, that’s crazy talk! The music is someone’s art. Their heart and soul. Their work and effort. Their time and dedication to the craft. And most importantly… their livelihood. Photography is the same. We put time and care into each photo that is delivered to our couples. From being in the moment, being ready, being well trained, knowing our equipment, understanding light, artistically capturing our vision in a second’s time, clicking that shutter, then finishing the photo in post production enhancing the feel/look with edits… this is our art, this is our livelihood. These photos are FOR our couples, and we have our couples’ enjoyment and happiness in mind during every step of the way, but these photos BELONG to us. They are OUR work and so the Copyright remains ours. Here’s the list of things you can’t do with the Print Release provided:

• Alter/edit the photos in any way (Instagram filters count ya’ll)
• Sell the photos
• Submit photos to a contest or publication (At least not without photographer’s permission first)
• Pretend you took them (This has very little to do with Brides and Grooms and more to do with other folks who have stolen our work, portraying it as their own. Yes, it’s happened a lot)

 

Luckily for us, we work with the best couples around and they always understand the value of the photography, and appreciate the importance of keeping the line between Print Rights and Copyrights clear. This post is intended only to inform and help the world out there understand what a typical Print Release involves and how that differs from a Copyright. Hopefully it helps!