Scoopt is a new service that tries to connect UK citizen photojournalists with publishers. You take a picture or video, send it to Scoopt and they sell it. In exchange, Scoopt gets 50 percent of what the publisher pays. That part of the deal may seem reasonable to many amateurs, but Scoopt's six-month exclusive license may not.
During that time, you can't do anything with the photo. "In short, you agree not to publish the photo in any way, shape or form, either directly or indirectly, for six months," Scoopt says.
Here's how Scoopt explains its needs for that exclusivity:
To understand this, imagine that all we had was a non-exclusive license. Let's say you take a 'hot' photo and send it to Scoopt. We do our thing and license the Daily Planet to publish the photo on the front cover of tomorrow's edition.
Naturally enough, the Daily Planet wants to keep this scoop all to itself. Indeed, that's precisely what it's paying for. But unless we have an exclusive license, we simply can't guarantee this. If you or somebody acting on your behalf were to go to the Daily Bugle and sells the same photo (or a similar photo, if you took several of the same event), or even if you were to upload it to a photo-sharing site, the Daily Planet would lose its scoop.
We need an exclusive license for six months in order to guarantee that a scoop stays a scoop. This is where the money is to be made. Your money!
That's quite a commitment to make to a new player, and I'm not sure many citizen journalists will go for it. I suppose if you're a prolific photographer, you might take a chance on Scoopt. If they do good by you, then that six-month term might not seem so stiff.
Current TV recently drew some criticism for a three-month exclusivity policy, though it has responded by saying that it may come up with other options.
Scoopt also might want to consider giving contributors some alternatives. Perhaps the percentage split could vary depending on what sort of licensing rights the photographer is willing to give up.
Linkprops to Phototalk.
UPDATE: Scoopt's Kyle MacRae responds.
6 months to have the scoop on a story? What, you've got a picture where George Bush actually looks intelligent and the newspaper wants to save the shot for just the right occasion?
Why the 6 month exclusivity term? In regards to photos, I do see the need for an exclusivity term - as the medium requires significantly less bandwidth than video - but I think this time period really shouldn't be longer than 7 days and 72 hours would probably be sufficient.
I recently made a quick little rant for Current per Robin Sloans request. Come check out the video when I post it to my videoblog on October 7th.
Posted by: Josh Wolf | Friday, July 08, 2005 at 12:24 AM