Best Business Practices for Photographers, Third Edition, 3rd Edition

Chapter 27

Contracts for Editorial Clients

Editorial contracts run a very wide gamut in terms of rights needed, rights demanded, prices paid, and numerous other seemingly egregious demands by publishers. In the end, there are far more disagreements—many of them public—over rights grabs and low-paying publications. Yet, a contract is defined as a “meeting of the minds.” It is an agreement between two (or more) parties who have a transaction they wish to make to either do or not do something. Examples of the “not to do” things would include farmers paid by the government not to farm a particular crop on their land, or an agreement not to disclose where (or how) a photograph was made or that it was ever made at all (often called a nondisclosure ...