Wedding Photography - Image usage rights

Image usage rights are something that couples don’t really have to worry about too much when they book a wedding photographer. The vast majority of Northern Ireland wedding photographers including ourselves provide an unlimited personal usage licence to their clients when they provide them with the images from their wedding, engagement session etc. A few photographers do have different licencing guidelines though so it’s always worth checking with them to find out what their policy is.

An unlimited personal use licence means that the couple can pretty much use the photographs for any reason they wish as long as that reason falls under “personal use”. Couples can post their wedding images on social media, they can use third party printing companies for prints and albums etc. or they can print their photographs themselves. So, you can pretty much use them for anything you would want. This however does not include commercial use.

Wedding Photography Album
Personal usage licence for prints

In the UK, image usage rights fall under copyright law. Under copyright law, the owner of a photographic image has the exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute and display the image. This means that without permission from the owner, you can not use a photograph for any purpose including commercial and personal use.

Who is the owner of a photograph?

In basic easy to understand terms, the owner of every photograph is the person who created the photograph. If a professional photographer takes a photograph they own the image, the same applies to amateur photographers as well, even if you have just taken a quick snap on your phone or even your iPad, you own that image and if anyone else wants to use that image for any reason they need permission from you first. There are some exclusions to this but they don’t really apply to wedding photography.

If you would prefer an answer that includes all of the legal jargon, if you have a search online for “U.K photo copyright law” you will find that the U.K governments .gov website covers this in a lot of detail.

photographer using iPad

Commercial use of wedding photography

Wedding venues and vendors are always looking for great content that can help them promote the service or product they provide. They will often ask couples to send them copies of their wedding photographs and videos. They will then use this content for advertising their business and updating content on their own websites and social media profiles.

Couple’s will often not be aware that they do not have the legal right to provide them with these. Couples can’t legally grant permission for a business to make any use of their professional wedding photographs or video. Off course you can send them photos and videos you have taken yourself if you wish.

Wedding venues and vendors sometimes aren’t aware of the legal implications themselves, so sometimes they don’t believe that they have done anything wrong when they use photographs without a usage licence. On the flipside of the coin though there are wedding venues and vendors who are very aware that they shouldn’t and legally can’t do this, but they do it anyway as the gains from having good content to advertise their business outweigh any legal issues later on down the line.

Why do venues and vendors violate copyright when they know they shouldn’t?

The answer is simple it comes down to cost. If they can get free content from you, they don’t have to pay for content themselves. In the case of a wedding venue for example photographs and videos that showcase their venue are vitally important for marketing. To employ professional photographers and videographers to create content for their websites. social media and ad campaigns as well as providing the relevant commercial usage licence can be expensive. With some venues it is a case of “why pay for something I can illegally get for free.”

As well as wedding venues and vendors there are some publications that operate in exactly the same way. They will contact couples themselves asking for content or they will ask on social media things like “send us your wedding photos to be featured on our website or in our magazine.” Content is even more important for them, without relevant content their own product can’t exist.

There is also an argument for saying that because a digital image is not something that you can feel and touch, that for some people stealing it does not seem like theft. It is unlikely that the owners of a wedding venue or a wedding vendor business would go into a shop and steal a photographic print so that they could hang it up in their place of business as an advertisement. They don’t seem to think about digital images in the same way though.

Why don’t they all just contact the photographer to get permission?

There are a few reasons, firstly the photographer may say “no, I don’t want you to use my images to advertise your business” and there can be very valid and genuine reasons why. Just as one example a few years ago we regularly provided a magazine with images, we thought it was a nice thing for our couples and of course it gave us a little bit of exposure ourselves. We then later found out that the magazine was contacting other wedding businesses and using our business name as a reference to get them to take out paid advertisements. They even told some that if they placed a paid advertisement that they would ensure that their advert was placed on the same page as our photographs for extra exposure. We weren’t comfortable with that and so stopped providing them with images. As they could no longer source images from us, they started hunting down and contacting our couples directly on social media and things all got a little bit messy.

In some instances, photographers maybe won’t provide content to online and print publishers because they are opposed to the other content the publication provides and don’t want to be associated with their publication. The same thing applies to other types of businesses as well. The photographer may say “no” because they have a reason why they do not want their business name associated to a particular venue or vendor. This could be for either a personal reason or because being associated with them could potentially portray the photographer’s business in a poor way.

Another reason they will not ask for the photographer’s permission is because the photographer may ask for something in return. Photographers will sometimes ask for either payment or to be credited in some way when their work is being used by another business for the purposes of advertising.

There also some venues and vendors who are unfortunately just very unprofessional in all areas of their business. They don’t ask for permission even when they know they legally have too because it’s seen as a hassle or they feel entitled in some cases, that they can just do what they want. Some view creative people like photographers and videographers as an unfortunate but necessary hassle.

Wedding photographer Belfast

We tagged you on social media so it is okay…

One of the most common things that wedding venues and vendors do when illegally using a professional photographer’s images or a professional videographer’s videos is social media use. They will either obtain images and video from unsuspecting couples or simply download and copy images from the creative’s website and social media. They will then add these to their own social media profiles and tag the creative in them. Some think that because they have tagged the creator that it is okay. However just because they have credited the creative does not mean that they have legal permission to use the content. A lot of the time they are using this content illegally and without permission. Some venues and vendors believe that because they have credited the creative that the creative should be thankful.

This type of copyright infringement is something we see on an almost daily basis and happens pretty much every time we deliver a gallery of photographs from a wedding or post to our own social media profiles after a wedding. Just as one example, after a recent wedding, the venue, the company that provided the brides dress, the company that provided the groom’s suit, the wedding transport company, the cakemaker, the make-up artist, the hairstylist, the room decoration business, the florist, and even the dog sitter used our images on social media and their websites to advertise their own businesses. Of those only the lovely lady that made the wedding cake contacted us and asked for our permission first.

How it impacts your wedding photographer

We know people not involved in the industry will maybe not understand and think “sure what does it matter if they steal your photographs, it is just some photos”. We can’t speak for every photographer out there, but for us though it isn’t “just some photos”, we pour our heart and soul into every wedding. Every photograph we capture is vitally important to us and it’s pretty soul destroying when venues and vendors take advantage of our hard work so that they can promote their own business. Wedding photographers are often just expected to say nothing, don’t talk about it and told to just ignore it. In response to that we would say, “how would you feel if someone took something illegally from you, that you have spent years learning skills to perfect and worked extremely hard to create, so that they can make some money of it?”

It's also an awful feeling for your photographer and potentially damaging to their business when their work is used without permission by businesses that they don’t want to be associated with. When you have built up over a long period of time a good business reputation the last thing you want as a small business owner is to be associated as having a relationship with a bad business, as it reflects on you.

Our own experiences as Northern Ireland wedding photographers

If you are even a reasonably successful wedding photographer these are things that unfortunately come with the territory. We have seen images we have created used without our permission on billboards, in magazines, Instagram and Facebook advertising campaigns, printed and online venue brochures. One venue used our images for a whole marketing campaign for a wedding fair they were running, even though we don’t do wedding fairs and had only shot one wedding there at the time. Sometimes they have just grabbed photographs from our social media and website, so it’s not just that they only get in touch with our couples and get images direct from them. Sometimes they have contacted our couples and purposely misled them, telling them things like, “it’s okay we don’t need your photographer’s permission, just yours”.

On occasion we have approached venues, vendors and even some well-known publications to discuss this with them, always in a nice way and some have been great about it and some have not. They do not always react well when they are caught out illegally using content created by someone else. Some venues and vendors when approached about it will become quite defensive and even aggressive. As an example, we have had one venue who had been using our images quite extensively on their website and social media imply that if we didn’t just go away and ignore it that they would be negative about our wedding photography business to couples that book their venue.

It is important to point out though that not all venues, vendors and publications are the same. Over the years we have built up great relationships with lots of them. A lot of them do follow the law and will contact us to get permission to use our content. With some venues, vendors and publishers because we have such a great relationship with them, we will even get in touch with them and ask them if there is any content they need.

When another business gets in touch with us to ask for permission to use our photographs, we always base our decision on saying yes or no on a case-by-case basis. We will want to know some details about their business, what the images are going to be used for and where they will be used, before we make a decision.

What can you do to to help your wedding photographer?

If you are contacted by a business who ask to either see photographs from your wedding or who ask for a copy of some of the photographs from your wedding, kindly explain that they should contact your wedding photographer.

Tommy + Laurene