Values and copyright

As part of our Professional Contexts module, James went through values that we should carry with us in our careers and how we should use these when working self employed and freelancing. As well as this, he spoke to us about copyright and how it is really important to copyright all of your photographs because then you legally have a right to do something when your photos are stolen. 

Values:

-       Set up a legal business for tax reasons

-       Sole trader or hiring accountants?

-       If you earn any money through photography, you will need a business and will work as a sole trader

-       You’ll have a greater sense of commitment, energy and enthusiasm for starting and running your business if its aligned to your values

-       You will find it easier to stay inspired when dealing with the more mundane aspects, or when things aren’t going well

-       James’ Advice - Hire an accountant!!

We then talked through the values that we should hold with us throughout our career and work on during this time in order to be successful:

-       Self respect

-       Independence

-       Knowledge

-       Work/life balance

-       Integrity

-       Community

-       Leadership

-       Stability : comes with effort and time

Freelancing and being Self-employed

-       You take responsibility for paying your tax and National Insurance

-       You must register with HMRC

In a more adult-living side to the lecture, we spoke about the records that we would need to keep if we wanted to run a business. I personally don’t really have any clue about anything financial at the moment so (if I can afford it when I’m more established) I feel like I should get an accountant to help me:

-       All sales and income

-       All business expenses

-       VAT records (if registered)

-       All records of personal income

-       Go to a bank and set up a business account after you’ve set up with a business house

An Accountant will

-       Prepare your profit and loss account for your trading year

-       Prepare your balance sheet for your trading year

-       Prepare yourself assessment tax return for the tax year based on the previous year

If you have an accountant or agent it’s unlikely that you will get investigated by HMRC which a lot of people do as they pay their taxes wrong or something goes wrong financially

Capital Allowances:  is the practice of allowing a company to get tax relief on tangible capital expenditure by allowing it to be expensed against its annual pre-tax income:

-       Equipment : camera, lights, computer, printer, software

-       Car : limited to the business use

Allowable Expenses: 

-       Office costs : stationary, mobile phone

-       Marketing : website/hosting, advertising, postal costs

-       Business : accountant, bank charges

-       Insurance : building (business use), public liability, contents, equipment

-       Travel : car/train/bus/plane/hotels, car maintenance/MOT, road tax, petrol

-       Raw materials/consumables : film, colourama, props, models

-       Cost of Premises : aka studio - rent/mortgage, gas, electricity, water, internet

Public Liability –

James suggested that we all join a union because this would mean that we would be automatically covered by lawyers. This could include NUJ (National Union of Journalists) or BIPP (British Institute of Professional Photography)

Insurance – get all of your gear and equipment covered so that if anything was so go wrong with it, you would be covered

Copyright :

Intellectual Property Rights (IP)

-       Copyright is part of a wider group of rights called intellectual property rights. ‘intellectual’ because they are products of the human mind and ‘property’ because they owned a house or piece of property

-       Intellectual property in the UK includes : patents, trademarks and design rights and protects performances as well as works protected by Copyright

-       All photographs are afforded copyright protection under UK law

-       In the UK the photographer (or visual artist) will own the copyright of their photograph for their life plus 70 years

Never assign over your copyright

-       You lose your moral rights to your imagery. EG. Your imagery might be used to promote something you are strongly      against. This could impact you personally and your ‘brand’. NEVER DO THIS and I need to remember that I should never feel as though this is my only option.

-       You could be financially liable if a subsequent use is defamatory

-       The assignee can resell your imagery

-       Your imagery can be altered and digitally manipulated, but still assumed to be your work. This could affect your      reputation and brand

-       There is almost always no need – you can grant the client a usage license, even all media, worldwide, in perpetuity, and still retain copyright and ultimate control

How/what should you negotiate

-       Explain you do not assign copyright, that you license your work

-       They do not need copyright, they need an exclusive license to use

-       They do not need all media, worldwide in perpetuity

-       The cost of all the usage total rights assignment gives is extremely high

-       Show them the copyright4clients website

-       Ask them exactly where they need to use the work so that you can price the job fairly

-       Offer an exclusive licence (allows the client to control the work during the negotiated term)

Talking through all of these in the lecture made me realise how much you actually have to think about when setting up your own business and going freelance. As this is something that I want to eventually do, I felt as though this lecture was really important to me. Especially because James has been in our position as new graduates and knows how the market is working in terms of mugging new photographer’s off. He really helped me to understand about copyright and taxes and how to stick to my guns about certain things.