britne's notebook

newsroom:

Walmart has a policy of not reprinting photos that “look professional.” So even though our wedding photographer has given Ashley and I all the negatives and told us that we can do whatever we want with them, Walmart doesn’t believe us and wants a signed release before they’ll do anything. Oh, and they kept the CD full of images that we gave them.

Who appointed them the copyright police? If I had a DSLR camera and turned in some photos that “looked professional,” would I have to prove to them that I took the pictures before they’d print them for me?

I don’t know, maybe this is good for photographers or something. All I know is that it’s making me very angry right now.

 I know from working in a photo lab that if the pics *are* copyrighted and the lab allows the customer to reprint, huge huge fines are involved. The chain I worked for had spot-checks and all. But a signed release should do it… we just made a copy and kept it in a file w/ customer phone # and date.