News and Announcements

Find A Photographer Campaign Planned

Start your Fall off right by updating your FAP profile. Take advantage of one of ASMP’s major benefits by creating a unique portfolio that displays your individual style to prospective buyers. By updating your contact info and uploading new images now, you’ll be just in time to get noticed during ASMP’s next marketing campaign starting in September.
To find out more, go here

New IPTC-PLUS Toolkit

The International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) and PLUS Coalition have teamed up to release a toolkit to be used with Adobe’s CS3 to CS5 products. The tools help photographers, image libraries and photo agencies store detailed descriptions of image content and other relevant data to manage image copyrights. The tools are free of charge and can be downloaded from the PLUS site at www.usePLUS.com

PicScout Enlarges Legal Partner Program

PicScout has engaged UK legal partners to facilitate image infringement charges and revenue pursuits for its many hundreds of photographer and stock photo agency clients in the United Kingdom. PicScout believes that the UK offers the best ground for claiming and proving image rights and may set the stage for establishing global recognition of image ownership and parameters of legitimate image use. The new legal partners are law firm Swan Turton and Intellectual Protection Ltd, which join the law firm Mishcon de Reya, ASMP’s counsel in the Google Settlement class action.

ASMP General Counsel Victor Perlman is closely following the “Copyright Cleanup, Clarification, and Corrections Act of 2010” (S 3689) which was passed by the Senate on August 2nd. According to Perlman, “I am concerned about the amendment regarding Ownership of Copyright, which gives the transferees of exclusive rights the ability to further transfer or license those rights without specific permission from the original copyright owner. I plan to discuss this with appropriate legislative staff.” More to come on this…

The Mayor’s Office of Film Theatre and Broadcasting passed the amendment, which ASMP has opposed, to the rules of the City of New York governing the issuance of permits for shooting, television, film and still photography on the streets of New York City. The amendment includes a $300 application fee for such permits and does not distinguish between small photography shoots and immense film productions. To find out how these rules apply, you can go here

On August 9th, an Arizona judge rejected a number of copyright registrations made by Corbis on behalf of former ASMP member Tom Bean. The basis for the rejection was that the registration was a compilation and did not name all of the individual photographers, did not title the photographs, and did not connect photographers with individual images. This is very similar to last month’s ASMP News story about the case of Muench Photography, Inc. vs Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Though the judge said his decision was not based on the Muench case, and that it was narrow in its application, ASMP is troubled by the ruling and will be following up as the case makes its way through the court system.

Toronto photographer Michael Cooper has been awarded the cover of Communication Arts 2010 Photography Annual. Cooper’s image, “Paige” captures the lead singer of The Ruby Spirit before she steps on stage.

The ASMP South Florida Chapter project, The Light of Florida, has been selected as the winner for “Best Thematic Show” at the Quinghai Three Rivers Photo Festival in China. A special shout-out to Tom Salyer and Nancy Brown for helping to make this happen.

Don't forget to keep us in the loop about what you're doing! Send your news to feedback@asmp.org.

Executive Director Eugene Mopsik and General Counsel Victor Perlman traveled to Washington D.C. in July to a Copyright Alliance membership meeting at which Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel spoke.

Gene Mopsik and Peter Krogh attended the July NDIIPP (National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program) Partners meeting in Washington D.C., where ASMP was recognized as a NDSA (National Digital Stewardship Alliance) Founding Member.

Images for AIA Sought

Architectural Specialty Group co-chairs Jeffrey Totaro and Chun Lai are requesting images from the New Orleans area from their fellow Group members for the 2011 AIA Convention, Innovations in Regional Design: Place-making in the 21st Century Metropolis. In exchange for contributing images, ASMP will receive booth and gallery space at the Convention which will be held in New Orleans in May of 2011. Photos will be credited with member names/ASMP where possible. If you have images, please submit files of 8.5" x whatever long dimension at 300ppi to the ASMP FTP site by August 18th, 2010.

FTP info: ftp://asmp.org Username: asmp_aia Password: copyright

Please upload your photos in a folder with your name on it.

CIIPC Seeks Submissions

The First China International Internet-based Photography Competition (CIIPC), hosted by China Photographers Association (CPA) and Changsha Municipal People’s Government, aims to promote world photographic exchange and development by taking advantage of today’s network communication. Professional and amateur photographers from all over the world are invited to join this grand event. The deadline for submitting is September 5th. To learn more about the Competition, go to asmp.org/pdfs/ChinaPhotoCompetition_2010.pdf.

2010 PhotoPhilantropy Award Submissions Open

The PhotoPhilanthropy Activist Award identifies outstanding work done by photographers in collaboration with non-profit organizations worldwide and awards a $15,000 prize in the professional category. The first 100 entries receives a free Blurb book coupon to produce a book of your non-profit work. For more info on the Award go to www.photophilanthropy.org/awards_overview.html.

Keep your comments coming at feedback@asmp.org — we want to hear from you!