The 2015 General Election

The BPPA

 
It has been a while since we ran a major project. At a recent meeting of The Association’s Board we decided that the upcoming UK General Election would be the perfect opportunity to right that wrong. We are inviting all members of The BPPA to get ready to submit photographs for this project which will start off as a web gallery and then, all being well, become something more.
Back in 2005 we ran a very succesful project which ended up with the arresting title “Never Mind The Ballots”. It started out as a web gallery but then became an exhibition which showed at the Palace of Westminster and on board the SS Robin which was moored at Canary Wharf. The summary of that show said this:

“The images collected in ‘Never Mind The Ballots’ express the sheer banality of the May 2005 general election. But more than this, they demonstrate the skill and determination of BPPA members who were able to produce excellent photographs under such tedious and stultifying conditions.

This was one of the most stage-managed, spin-driven and least visually interesting British elections of modern times. An event during which the nation’s press photographers faced months of ten-minute photo-calls and frustratingly regular delays in their quest to find interesting and significant images. This exhibition is both a celebration of the achievements under such conditions and a critique of those monstrous circumstances themselves; proof that vital and arresting shots are there despite the adverse efforts of political parties to regulate and normalize content.”

We have the strong suspicion that nothing will have changed apart from even greater pressure on news photographers to supply pictures in greater quantities, to tighter rolling deadlines and against even greater efforts from the political party machines to control what we do.
Railing against that control is something that press photographers do well and this project is a great opportunity to show off those pictures – especially those that may never be seen elsewhere.
Watch out for some interesting and creative work.

What's going on at DACS? Part 2

Sir John Tenniel

In this second part of his assessment of what is happening with DACS, Andrew Wiard explains why the current situation is not something that photographers should accept.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

Insisting on ALL secondary rights – does it really matter? Is it such a big deal?
Yes it is, but first, what exactly are these secondary rights everyone is talking about? Fact is you will not find a concise legal, or any precise, definition anywhere (or if you find one, please let me know). They can be defined negatively – they are those rights which are not primary. And primary rights are? For want of a better definition, the rights we exercise directly ourselves.This is how DACS describes, not defines, but describes secondary rights: those “ it would be impractical for you to license……. on an individual basis ”. At first sight all sounds plain common sense. Our primary rights  are those we exercise individually and directly (or through our agents) and as for photocopying, well, that’s best left to DACS. That’s secondary. 
But hang on, who decides what rights it is impractical for us to license, and how? What’s secondary and what’s not? Photocopying is pretty obvious, but where is the line drawn and can we trust those who draw it?
Take the strange case of the European “Memorandum of Understanding”.  I first wrote about this for the Stop43 website.  The point here (and I’m afraid you really do have to plough through all that to get it) is that the signatories to this European memorandum were plotting to consign our *primary* rights to collecting societies (you should also read DACS’s reply). The idea behind the MoU was  to republish out-of-print works, for the benefit of humankind of course, if the authors or publishers do not do so themselves. Their rights would have to be taken into account, but then what to do with embedded works, works embedded on the printed page?
Embedded Works? – photographs, to you and me. Ah, the solution is obvious – collecting societies!
Why? Why? If any publisher, any publisher, whoever they are, wishes to produce a new edition of a book containing a photograph which I have already licensed directly once, all I have to do is – do it again. Negotiate a further licence. Directly. Any photographer who supplies books for a living will do this as a matter of course. By any definition, we are not talking secondary rights here. These are primary rights. Our rights. Not secondary rights, the rights which according to DACS, are those it is “impractical for us to license on an individual basis”. But the rights we know perfectly well how to license directly ourselves. No doubt the publishers of out-of-print works will find dealing with us tiresome. All publishers find licensing any works tiresome. But however secondary rights are defined, they are most certainly NOT those rights which publishers find it oh so inconvenient to have to license on an individual basis! And we have no idea what other rights of ours will be considered secondary in future. This is why it is so important that any secondary rights agreement spells out precisely what rights are referred to, and any additional rights to be collectively administered thereafter are specified, negotiated and agreed in advance, and agreed without the threat of money being withheld.
A gang of European collecting societies agreed to this. And our UK rep there? – yes, you guessed it, DACS. Which is why, in their reply referred to above, they are so keen to make out that the memorandum doesn’t say what it means when it says what it says – or rather, as DACS puts it, it is all subject to consultation: “ a collective management organisation for visual works (such as DACS) would be obliged to consult with rightsholders prior to any agreement being reached “. DACS would consult. But that doesn’t explain what on earth they were doing going along with all this in the first place. Consult, over our *primary* rights? And, anyone remember being consulted?
DACS, consult? Really? The way they consulted about this new agreement of theirs? It went like this. First they got a small number of important figures into a room, told them all about the forces of darkness (true) but that none of this could be publicly revealed for fear of (legal?) consequences. Utterly false. It’s all coming out now, but nothing we couldn’t have been told right at the start. These figures were then to go out and tell all photographers, without going into  details, that they must sign up. Which, BAPLA  excepted, they then did. The one thing DACS did not do was consult their contributors. They represent us individually. They were after individual signatures. They should have talked to us, individually.
Instead, a series of inducements, “prizes”, to get people to sign up before the annual deadline. I was offered a prize draw, where I “could win up to £250 in vouchers to spend on art and photography materials” . And if I were to recommend Payback to a friend, “we’ll offer you both the chance to win £150 to spend at on art or photography materials at Jackson’s Art Supplies or Metro Imaging”. Talk about desperation!
Are we adults or kids to be tempted with sweeties?
No mention, of course, in these emails, of the new contributor agreement which had to be signed as the last stage of completing the claims form, or of its significance. Those discussions were only for the chosen few. If you doubt that, look at what happened to the NUJ’s NEC member for photographers Pete Jenkins, who dared to ask them what was really going on. DACS first offered him a meeting before the signature deadline. Then withdrew the offer, refused to meet him, saying they’d be holding a meeting for a wider group after the deadline. After the deal was done and it was all over! And, after the deal? Pete naturally asked to come along but was then told no, they were full up, and they had what they thought was a wide enough range of interested parties already.
Translation – no awkward squad, thank you.
Just before Christmas I received an email from DACS.

“ With the introduction of a new Payback membership, we are now able to formally consult with you on issues concerning your rights, and importantly, safeguard your existing and future royalties.”

What nonsense. They’ve been able to consult us, formally or not, for months. Before, not after, we had to sign. They just didn’t want to.
Let’s be clear what they did. They announced a new agreement. They said they would consult. But not, of course, the individual photographers required to sign. They then stuck to what they said in the first place. The DACS take it or leave it discussion, followed by their take it or leave it agreement.
And what if we did not sign? The payouts last Christmas were for sums collected before last year, that is before this new agreement which has only now come into force, collecting for future payouts in Christmas 2015. DACS was clearly saying, no signature, no payout. You couldn’t complete your claim for this year without it. In other words, they were applying this agreement retrospectively, to enforce compliance. Signing under duress – legal? – well, which one of us had the time, the energy, and most of all the money, to find out?
So, there you have it – consultation, DACS style.
This is serious. DACS say they will consult in future about collecting any other secondary rights. I think I now know what that means. We have given them the power not only to interpret that word as they see fit, but to collect whatever they think falls into that category, and regardless of what we think. They say we can always withdraw our signature at a future date, but so what? Because what we have signed up to now will now in all likelihood give them, under the new ECL regulations, the power to collect the “secondary” rights of all photographers, whether signed up or not. So you can unsign if you like, but you’re going nowhere as DACS will just carry on collecting.
What to do? The law is an expensive but no longer the only way to bring collecting societies to heel. Under the new ECL regulations they have to behave. So the CLA thinks it can collect for pictures but not pay photographers? Time to shop them to the Secretary of State. That’s one way.
There’s another. It will become increasingly practical for us to collect directly. Cue Paul Ellis of Stop 43: “ The solution is obvious – the Copyright Hub, which when implemented will suddenly make a load of ‘secondary’ rights ‘primary’, because it will no longer be impossible for individual photographers to manage them.” The future should indeed lie with the Copyright Hub, see here: https://www.copyrighthub.co.uk/ .
That however is still under development, that is for the future, and today we are already trapped by our signatures. And did we really have a choice?  For there’s no doubt whatsoever that the  vultures are circling. This from DACS earlier this month:

“ In DACS’ view, the CLA is trying to use its market power to reduce the existing 8% share of its revenues that go to visual artists and possibly risk the future of the Payback scheme. DACS has insisted that the existing arrangement should continue until the end of September 2017. This will help manage the transition to any new arrangements and protect our members’ incomes in the interim. To date the CLA has not accepted this.”

The latest is that DACS has now, using the authority we have given them, forced the CLA to accept this – temporary – deal. Only a temporary deal, but a deal none the less.
For this we have paid a heavy price. Let’s be clear. DACS may be on our side. But we have just given a hostage to fortune.

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

A Gun To Our Heads – The new DACS Agreement, part 1

Andrew Wiard

In the first of a two-part blog post Andrew Wiard, a member of The BPPA’s Board, asks “What’s going on at DACS?”

Last year we all had to sign a new agreement, and if we didn’t – no annual payout at Christmas. So, why? Short answer, because DACS is at the bottom of a collecting society food chain, and they are all fighting like rats in a sack. Over our pictures, and our money.

Collecting societies – we photographers know that every year we get our DACS money, but not all of us know how or why. Here’s how it works. I’ll make this as simple as I can. In the beginning, way back in 1983, writers (through ALCS, the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society Ltd) and  publishers (through the PLS,  Publishers Licensing Society Ltd), established the CLA (Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd), jointly owned by them, for collective blanket licensing on their behalf. Which means authors and other right holders do not issue licences individually or directly, instead the CLA charges clients a one-off fee for a licence to make multiple copies of multiple works, without identifying any of the copyright owners.  So what are we talking about here? Essentially, the photocopying of books and magazines, though there are also other sources of income such as cable retransmission of TV programmes. Which all fall into the category of so-called ‘secondary’ rights. We exercise our ‘primary’ rights directly, collecting societies only stepping in where it is impractical for us to do so. After paying a small amount of money to overseas right holders, CLA then gives the lot to writers and publishers. So what about us then? We photographers said hang on a minute, we are copyright holders too. Eventually the CLA gave us our share through the DACS (the Design and Artists Copyright Society Ltd) payback scheme. Though with only an 8% cut – think that’s because we were late to the party.

Why not newspapers you might ask? Because they set up their own society, the NLA (Newspaper Licensing Agency), paying out to the newspapers, who then pay their freelance contributors any money they think they might owe. Or not, as is usually the case. Anyone remember getting an NLA payout at Christmas? Which is where all the recent fighting started, and that needs a blog all to itself, but briefly, authors were furious at not getting their share of the NLA money. And then a lot of magazine publishers jumped ship from the CLA to join the NLA instead, now re-branded NLA Media Access. After all, why share their (our) CLA money with writers? Or anybody? The ALCS began to fight NLA Media Access, while also fighting – I mean, of course talking – with the remaining CLA publishers over their shares from the CLA. Who have now decided to save money picking on DACS, by tearing up their agreement. That’s right – make the photographers pay! So what exactly are our brothers and sisters in the ALCS – the writers, photographers’ best friends – playing at? They are  joint owners, with the PLS, of the CLA! In the middle of this unholy mess, the CLA chief exec departed.

It would seem the CLA put a gun to the head of DACS, and so DACS put a gun to ours. Sign our new agreement here, or get no Christmas money.

Why so? What is this new agreement and how is it supposed to get DACS out of this hole? It requires us to sign over to DACS our secondary rights, exclusively. Actually a new agreement makes a lot of sense. Signing exclusive rights to DACS means they can stand up to the CLA, ALCS, PLS, NLA Media Access or anyone else trying to grab what’s ours, on firm, or at least much firmer, legal ground. It also means DACS can withstand scrutiny under both new EU directives and new UK legislation. Which any other organisation grabbing rights signed exclusively to DACS would – or rather should – be unable to do.

So what’s the problem? Why not just sign? The problem is that DACS is not just seeking the specific rights they already exercise on our behalf today, but ALL our secondary rights tomorrow. The distinction is crucial, see part two of this blog. I’m not the only one to object to this. BAPLA (The British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies) said, rightly, that the new agreement should be confined to only those secondary rights currently being exploited by DACS, i.e. photocopying/scanning, educational recordings and cable re-transmissions. If DACS is to administer any further rights that should be the subject of future consultation. What could be wrong with that? BAPLA is right. Now we photographers don’t always see eye to eye with BAPLA , and especially when it comes to DACS. Many BAPLA members think they’re the ones who should be taking the DACS money, and a big cut, before handing the rest to us. We think it’s our money ( and it is ) and that we should deal direct with DACS, unless we choose, as some of us do, to go through an agent. Big money at a stake here. But whatever schemes BAPLA may now be planning, with our pictures, we do have common cause when it comes to how and what DACS actually collects. We and our agents must insist on our right to license our photographs directly without a collecting society coming in between – unless, that is, that is totally impractical and absolutely unavoidable.

All we should have been asked to do last year was sign up to what DACS had already collected in previous years. Now what could be simpler than that? But DACS wouldn’t hear of it. They seem to think they don’t have to listen to us – or rather, while they make a great show of listening, they just don’t take any notice. The obvious objections were repeatedly made. They didn’t change a word.

So where does this leave us? As far as I can see the picture now looks like this. The ALCS doesn’t know if it has the legal firepower to fight NLA Media Access. The CLA doesn’t know if it has enough to fight them or their new magazine publishers either. DACS doesn’t know if it has enough to fight the CLA. But there’s one thing DACS knew for sure – we individual photographers did not have the time, energy or the money to take them to court over our payout. So who’s in charge here – us or them? The photographers who took the pictures, or the organisation that claims to represent us?

That money was collected in 2013. In withholding our money to enforce a new agreement for the future they were applying it retrospectively to money that already belonged to us. That was our money. They should have paid it without question and then sat down with all of us to negotiate – repeat, negotiate – the new agreement.

Instead, when the CLA put a gun to the head of DACS, DACS put a gun to ours.

Why all this really does matter? – see Part Two.

2014 UK Picture Editor Guild Awards winners announced

Joanne Davidson, The Picture Library Ltd

 
Congratulations to all of the winners at the 2014 Picture Editor Guild Awards. 

  • BT Sports Photographer of the Year: Simon Stacpoole, Offside
  • Getty Royal Photographer of the Year: Andrew Parsons, i-Images
  • News Photographer of the Year: Jeff Mitchell, Getty Images
  • Christie’s Arts & Entertainments Photographer of the Year: Joanne Davidson, The Picture Library Ltd
  • Bloomberg Business Photographer of the Year: Leon Neal, Agence France Presse
  • Fixation Young Photographer of the Year: Henry Nicholls, Newsteam/SWNS
  • Genesis Regional Photographer of the Year: Charles McQuillan, Getty Images
  • Photo Essay of the Year: Jeff Mitchell, Getty Images
  • Citizen Photographer of the Year: Vinesh Raipul


For the full list of winners go to The Picture Editor Guild website

An open letter to Time Inc UK

 
When several photographers started getting letters from Hamish Dawson, Publishing Director  of  Time Inc.(UK) Ltd, Specialist Sport and Leisure with a new rights grab which asked them to agree to sign away all rights in any work that they carried out for the magazines and websites in the group we decided to write to him. Below is that letter and below that is his reply.
We are pretty sure that few people will bother to go down and read what he said in reply but it is worth noting that in the final paragraph he says:
“If an individual contributor does not wish to enter into an All Rights agreement, it may be possible for that individual to negotiate a different arrangement, for example, a Qualified Rights agreement. Each case continues to be considered on its own merits, and that decision remains with the senior team on the brand concerned.”
This is a long way from being the response that we would be looking for but it is a course of action that is open to individual photographers to follow if they are offered work by one of the Time Inc UK titles and they don’t want to sign the new contract.

Dear Mr Dawson

What would make a photographer with well over twenty years experience, a mortgage and a family tell one of his key clients to “get lost” – using language that we couldn’t and wouldn’t want to post on a public facing website?

The answer is your new rights-grabbing contract which includes a not-so-subtle line giving them a choice between signing what appears to be a massively unfair deal or losing any and all chance of supplying you ever again. Sadly, you aren’t the first major publisher and buyer of photography to decide that you want to tear up long-standing agreements which saw you buying licenses to use the photographs whilst the copyright remained with the photographer. Sadly, you probably won’t be the last either.

The reason that the old one was a ‘long-lasting agreement’ was because it was fair – the word ‘equitable’ even comes to mind. The fees paid were OK but the ability to re-sell the work after an initial period of exclusivity made the jobs worth doing. Had you, the publisher, substantially increased the fees payable to the photographers to redress this balance then that sense of fairness may have been saved from what most of those photographers feel will be a sad, painful and untimely death.

Receiving these letters just before Christmas has been causing anger, resentment and pain for a large number of photographers who can be excused for assuming that the calculation within the Time Inc UK management must be that enough existing people with no real option to do otherwise will sign and enough struggling photographers who don’t yet work for you will grasp their opportunity to get more work and keep their heads above water.

Make no mistake, this is not a small adjustment to the terms and conditions under which so many photographers supply work to you. This is moving the goalposts, repainting them and renaming them as ‘scoring portals’.

We would like to give you the opportunity to explain why this is being done. We probably know the obvious answers about maximising shareholder returns and the less obvious ones about protecting the brands but what about the relationship that you had with talented, creative and dedicated suppliers?

Does a rights-grab of this magnitude make it worthwhile destroying relationships that have stood the test of time and that have worked well?

Any explanation that you can provide will be shared with photographers because many of our members are struggling with your decision.

Kind regards

Neil Turner

[email protected]

Dear Mr Turner,

Thank you for your e-mail.

As you correctly observe, we are not the first publisher to re-evaluate our rights purchasing position, and a number of our agreements are indeed long-standing.

Unfortunately, while the agreements may not have changed, the markets, media and commercial circumstances in which we all operate have changed quite dramatically over the last few years, and we now operate in quite a different publishing and media landscape to the one which pertained  when many of our existing rights agreements were first set up.

I would first make the point that most of our existing agreements are between IPC Media and the contributor concerned. Since becoming Time Inc. (UK) Ltd., we have viewed it as necessary to bring these agreements up to date. Secondly, many of our agreements do not acknowledge the fact that the company now has significant and rapidly growing, digital publishing platforms and the new agreements reflect this development.

We have also been encouraging our specialist editorial staff to improve the clarity of their commissioning and written communication, and have set out some standards which we expect to be followed, and which we believe are in the interests of both contributors and the brands alike.

Regarding the All Rights agreement that is being sent to Time Inc. (UK) specialist contributors, it has been our practice for a number of years to ask many of our freelance contributors to enter into either an All Rights or Qualified Rights agreement when we purchase content from them. In many instances we’ve asked contributors to sign on-going agreements to cover all the material that they sell to Time Inc. called ‘Core Rights Agreements’. So the agreements that are now being dispatched, while they have been updated and re-worded, are not a new innovation and having a Core Rights Agreement in place ensures that payments can be made to contributors much more speedily than might be the case if individual contracts had to be sent out and agreed on a job-by-job basis.

If an individual contributor does not wish to enter into an All Rights agreement, it may be possible for that individual to negotiate a different arrangement, for example, a Qualified Rights agreement. Each case continues to be considered on its own merits, and that decision remains with the senior team on the brand concerned. Contributors should, however, bear in mind that commercial realities dictate that we will be using the content that we purchase in many different ways, both now and in the future and quite clearly, unless both parties are willing to enter an agreement that suits them both, there is no viable basis on which work can be commissioned or accepted.

I hope that this clarifies our position.

Kind regards

Hamish Dawson
Publishing Director 

Time Inc.(UK) Ltd. Specialist Sport and Leisure

Golf Monthly; Rugby World; World Soccer; The Field; Shooting Times; Sporting Gun; Shooting Gazette; Shootinguk.co.uk; Angler’s Mail; Amateur Gardening

If you know any photographers who are affected by this or who might be affected by it in the future, please share this with them. The terms and conditions under which many of us work are being steadily eroded by publishers who seem to opt for the ‘nuclear’ all-rights option rather than consult with their previously loyal contributors and explore the more equitable route of agreeing licenses that suit the current world of publishing. It is also interesting to note that Time Inc haven’t tried to do this to their US photographers… YET!

The one on the left is a snapper…

Mikael Buck

On the left we have a Snapper, it’s a type of fish, on the right we have a photographer – please learn the difference.
Would you like to demean everything I have achieved in my career with one word? Great! Then just call me a snapper – you won’t be the first or the last person to do it.
With few exceptions, the term snapper is used as a description for photographers by almost everyone we work with – from journalists, to PR professionals, picture editors and other press photographers. What began as a jokey phrase used amongst photographers has been taken from us and turned into a widely accepted description of what we do.
Often when I bring this subject up the reply I get back is something along the lines of “What’s your problem? It’s just a word. I think it’s quite fun”. Well, here’s my problem…the term implies that our sole contribution at work is to own a camera and turn up on time. In nobody’s dictionary is a snap considered to be something that took any skill or input to achieve – it is without a doubt a derogatory term when used to describe a photo.
Of course, most people using the do not really believe we are just taking ‘snaps’. I’ve heard the term used by many colleagues and clients who I know to have a great respect for, and understanding of, what we do. But the term has slowly seeped into our collective consciousness and rarely gets questioned. Whether the person using them intends it or not, some words are loaded with meaning.
One defence of the word I’ve often heard is: “Well OK, obviously some of you guys are photographers, like those who do reportage and high end portraiture – but you can’t exactly call waiting outside court or a night club and taking a few snaps of someone leaving photography”. Yes you can. If you think having five seconds (that’s not an exaggeration) to get a sharp picture of someone running towards you in the dark isn’t a skill then I suggest you try it for yourself. Afterwards you’ll need to talk to quite a few people to make sure that you’ve identified the right person in your photo. But it’s just a snap so maybe don’t worry about that part too much, eh?
Some of my colleagues will no doubt think that I am getting carried away over an insignificant and almost endearing term. And they might compare me to a cabbie who would like to be know as an Executive Transportation Route Consultant (sorry cabbies – if that’s what you want, then that’s fine by me!). Indeed, the online forum where the majority of Britain’s working press photographers discuss their profession is called Snapperweb, so obviously not everyone feels the same way as me.
But I believe if press photography as a profession is going survive the transition to online then we need to learn to acknowledge and communicate to others the contribution we make to journalism – and the language we use is a powerful symbol to the wider world as to how we view ourselves.
Despite what some people will have you believe, press photography is alive and well – most of the space in our national newspapers and news website is given over to photographs and most of these photographs are taken by professional news photographers and not amateurs. This tells you all you need to know about the power of the still image and the skill of the people taking these pictures. Yet shift rates have remained the same for over a decade, the public view our profession with complete disdain and staff positions are almost unheard of. That tells me that as a profession we do not have the power or influence that is commensurate with the contribution we make – stopping using the term “snapper” to refer to ourselves is a small, easy step we can take towards rectify that situation.
So then, just to sum up – a snapper is a type of fish and not a press photographer. Spread the word!
I’d love to hear your thoughts, whatever side you take in this debate. Leave a comment below or tweet me and the association – @mikaelbuck and @TheBPPA
The views expressed here are solely my own and do not necessarily represent the views of The BPPA.
You can see Mikael’s gallery page here.

Insurance and what to look for

Alan Davidson/The Picture Library Ltd

 
Let’s start off by stating the obvious – professional photographers tend to own a lot of expensive gear. Most photographers have insurance for that expensive gear and one of the most common queries that you’ll see on discussion forums frequented by those professionals is about which insurer is the best/cheapest. Insurance is proof of two of life’s most enduring truths:

  1. The best is rarely the cheapest (unless price is your only arbiter of ‘best’)
  2. The devil is in the detail (or the small print)

Having spent days or even weeks looking into insurance for photographic equipment I thought that it would be useful to write down a few things that you might like to consider and a few questions that you might like to ask when assessing the relative merits of competing quotes. The first thing that you need to know that the company offering to sell you insurance is most likely to be a broker and not an actual insurer (or underwriter).

Insurance broker noun  A person or company registered as an adviser on matters of insurance and as an arranger of insurance cover with an insurer on behalf of a client.

There’s nothing wrong with a good broker – they know their industry, will have worked with people like you before and will generally know where to get the best deals with the right cover. The actual insurer will be an underwriter.

Underwriter noun A person or company accepting liability under (an insurance policy), thus guaranteeing payment in case loss or damage occurs.

There are about six or seven underwriters who have products and experience in the professional photography arena and each of them lays down their own specific rules and exclusions when offering policies through brokers. That is how it works: you go along to a broker who then offers you a policy underwritten by someone else. Most brokers stick to the same two or three underwriters for specific types of policy and will generally pick up very quickly what you want and be able to advise you on which policy to take out.
That’s all good if the broker has made an accurate assessment of what you want. Sometimes all they hear is “cheap” and will just get you the lowest priced policy which may or may not be a perfect fit for you and your work. Sometimes all they hear is “comprehensive” and get you a policy with all of the bells and whistles at a higher cost and the chances are that you might not need some of those bells and whistles. This brings up a whole series of things that you might want to know the answer to before you speak to a broker.

  1. What kind of cover do you want? Theft and accidental damage?
  2. Are you prepared to have a high excess payment?
  3. How would you describe the kind of work that you do? Is it hard news, sports, features, PR, general editorial?
  4. Do you have secure locks on all potential access points to your home and/or office where you will be leaving your equipment?
  5. Where do you live? Town or country, house or flat?
  6. What kind of vehicle do you drive? Saloon, estate, hatchback, convertible, van?
  7. How good is your security on and in your vehicle?
  8. Where and when do you leave your gear in your vehicle? Daylight, overnight, only when working?
  9. Do you need to be able to leave gear in hotel rooms? If so, where in the world?
  10. How often and where in the world do you travel with gear? Most UK insurers limit you to a total of 90 days.
  11. If you travel, is you gear covered in the hold of an aircraft or elsewhere whilst in transit?
  12. Does your work take you into area or scenes of civil unrest?
  13. Do you need to insure rental or loan equipment?
  14. Do you need to insure laptops and other IT equipment? Does that include software?
  15. Do you need to insure an archive?
  16. Do you need Public Liabilities Insurance? If you do, is £2million enough or would you need £5million?
  17. What about Professional Indemnity Insurance?
  18. How do you want to pay for your cover? Annually or monthly?
  19. Do you want ‘new for old’ cover or will you accept a ‘wear and tear’ reduction to get the cost down?
  20. Have you got a figure including bags, cases and accessories for the kit you want covered?

That’s a long list of separate questions and each of them will have a bearing on which underwriter a broker should steer you towards and by answering each of them honestly you will get cover that suits you. Sometimes there won’t be a perfect policy and you will have to accept a compromise but you need to remember that all underwriters are in business to maximise their income and minimise the number of claims that they have to pay out on. If you give false information on your application they will do their level best to avoid paying some or all of your claim. We have all heard scary stories about people who have had claims dismissed over seemingly innocuous details and when our gear gets damaged or stolen the last thing that we need is to find out that we weren’t covered for that eventuality.
There are plenty of things that you can do to help get the cost down and/or your cover up and you can can go through the list above and see what you can do to help. Improving home security (some Police forces offer free checks) is an obvious one as is improving the security of your vehicle. Some underwriters offer discounts if you have recognised security cages or locking compartments permanently fitted in your car whilst others give better deals/improved cover for saloon cars with separate lockable boots. Further down the list, if you don’t insure your software (easy if everything is recorded and/or under subscription) you can save money – not much, but it all adds up.
What else can you do to help? The most obvious is to keep a full and up to date list of your gear complete with serial numbers. A simple spreadsheet stored on a cloud somewhere is an easy win but registering your gear with either Canon or Nikon Professional Services is also a good idea. Fairly new to the market is Lenstag – which in their own words was “designed to get your gear on record with the least amount of effort, the strongest ownership claim and as quickly as possible.” It is a simple concept with a central registry of owners, gear and serial numbers which can be managed via their website or their smart phone apps.

New from the UKPCA – Passport and Chips

All change at the UKPCA – the UK Press Card Authority, where the BPPA is one of the card issuing gatekeepers. At today’s meeting they voted nemo contra for two fundamental reforms.
The meeting faced two problems. First, Custom Card, who administer the card on behalf of the gatekeepers, had detected two duplicate applications for the card from one individual through two different gatekeepers using subtly different details! The database relies on these details and the fraudulent application was only spotted because both applications came in on the same day with the same photograph. Fraudulent information undermines the integrity and security of the entire system. Clearly the case for independent verification of personal information is overwhelming.
Secondly the UKPCA had been approached by Downing Street police, asking  in the nicest possible way what we could do about security generally, and saying they got on well with the regular photographers, but they’d had complaints from them about people getting in with Demotix cards,  some of whom did not appear to be even taking any pictures!
Demotix cards – the ones that look surprisingly, alarmingly, you might even suspect deliberately, just like ours.
Custom Cards wanted to activate the card chips, which all UKPCA cards now carry, in full – all data, not just pin numbers (the phone line verification for which is not 24 hours). And they now have an app which would allow police to check card holders instantly and speedily. That would take care of any confusion over those Demotix cards looking so  much like ours, because they just don’t have one. And avoid what one photographer recently went through in Downing Street – 45 minutes while police checked him out.
So why on earth hasn’t this been done before? The chips are all there, all ready, we all pay for them….answer, because the NPA and NS simply refused to cooperate. That’s now history. The vote’s been taken. All gatekeepers must now accept fully working chips as a condition of remaining gatekeepers. Custom Card will now switch them on, and distribute the app.
Back to personal information – the other major change. From today, for verification purposes, all applications for the press card must be supported with the number, and a scan, of either passport or driving licence. Speaking for myself, I cannot imagine why anyone thinks this such a big deal – every year I submit both my passport and driving licence numbers three times, to get into the major party conferences. And have always thought it absurd that I have to meet a higher standard of security vetting to get into those than I do to stand all day outside No.10.
These two long overdue, vital changes will improve both the security and the authority of the – our – press card. And make card checks easier , faster, and painless for all concerned. Job done.
 

The Copyright Fight – David Bailey weighs in…

 
Today is the day when the UK Government could vote to include a seemingly innocuous clause in an otherwise largely uncontroversial piece of legislation that will not only harm our industry but also place this country at odds with a vital international treaty. It is upsetting, bizarre and unnecessary to the point of being farcical.
The BPPA has been trying very hard to get the Government to see sense and drop the copyright clause from the Enterprise Regulatory Reform Bill for a while now. In a world where the intervention of a celebrity can unclog jams and open doors we decided to ask UK Photography’s biggest celebrity, David Bailey, to write to cabinet members on behalf of all owners and creators of intellectual property. He decided to write to George Osborne MP, The Chancellor of the Exchequer personally and he has given us permission to circulate that letter as widely as we wish – and here it is…
The text of the letter in full:
Dear George
I am writing because I am appalled at what the government is doing to our rights in the ERRB (Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill). Why the ERRB by the way? Why can’t copyright be dealt with properly in a proper Copyright Bill? I’m told everyone will be able to get their hands on our so-called “orphans” so libraries and museums can publish old photographs whose authors have long been forgotten. But never mind what’s lying around on dusty old shelves, what about the millions of “orphans” that are being created now every day!
Why? Because social media, and everyone else for that matter routinely strip our names and contact details from our digital files. They simply should not be allowed to get away with this. They can because our government refuses to give us the right to our names by our pictures (Moral rights). So now commercial organisations will be allowed to make money from our “orphans”, but not us, the creators.
This legislation should never have been even considered without first giving us our moral rights, and is contrary to our rights under the Berne Convention. Why the rush? A scheme, the Copyright Hub – a scheme backed by the government – is being developed to ensure that those who wish to find our pictures can not only do so quickly online, but also find the contact details of the pictures’ owners. You are about to put the cart before the horse.
I’m told the real reason for speed is that “releasing” orphans will create growth. We all understand the need for growth. But where’s the evidence? The seemingly impressive financial figures presented originally in the Hargreaves Review have mysteriously had to be revised – down by 97%! Which now apparently amount to no more than 80p per taxpayer per year. Given the damage this legislation will now cause to taxpaying creators, damage no-one has so far taken into account, the effect of this legislation on economic growth will in fact be negative.
It’s not too late to think again!
Best,
David Bailey