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Simple online contracts & copyright service for SA photographers launches

Photographers – worried about copyright ownership of your shots, who you can photograph and where, or how the incoming Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI) will affect your work? Then it might be worth looking at the service which Joburg-based legal firm Web•Tech•Law has launched which is aimed directly at you.

The Photographer Terms of Engagement and Data Protection Policy is a simple English, non-legalise form which is designed for snappers who know everything there is to know about their artform, but struggle with the formalities of the business such as payments, expenses, who owns what – and what you’re entitled to retain rights to – under the Copyright Act, data protection and more. It also covers liabilities and protections under the Consumer Protection Act.

It also includes built-in clauses for delays, reshoots, and how to terminate a relationship and still get paid.

Web•Tech•Law founder Paul Jacobson says that the idea for an off-the-shelf, digital contracting service came from several of legal workshops he ran for photographers, in which the complexity of contracts was unveiled as a primary for South African photographers.

“Most photographers and small business owners, generally, use contracts that have been passed around on discussion fora and other online spaces,” Jacobson explains, “These contracts are either hacked together using bits and pieces from contracts photographers have come across or they use contracts in use in foreign countries where different laws require contracts based on those specific legal requirements which may be irrelevant to South African lawyers or simply won’t deal with the issues we face here.

“DIY contracts are tremendously risky because they are often not developed with much awareness of how important it is to use appropriate and consistent terminology or of the legal risks photographers face and which the contract must cater for. It’s a bit like cannibalising camera parts and jamming them together into a new camera and expecting the same level of performance as manufactured camera from a reputable brand. You might get a couple shots, if you are lucky, and you’ll only realise what a bad idea it was when you take your DIY camera out for that wedding shoot and realise you didn’t get anything.”

The Photographer Terms of Engagement and Data Protection Policy is available for a one-off fee of R1 500 which gives you access to service and covers six months of free updates as more laws like POPI come into effect.

Right now, subscribers to the service will receive customised documents within a couple of days of purchase, but Jacobson says the firm is working on a fully digital system so that the process between sign-up and download will take minutes.

You can sign up for the service over here.

Disclosure – Web•Tech•Law is based in the same office block as htxt.africa, and Paul writes a weekly column for us on legal affairs. He’s also offering readers of this site a discount of 20% for the service – sign up using the discount code *htxt13* and you’ll get the contract service for the first six months for R1 200 rather than the usual rate.

(Image CC attrib – thethreesisters @ Flickr)

 

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