Fee for providing lost images?

[Deleted member 88956]

As a professional who maintains a reliable and easy to access archive for minimal financial effort on my part, I find it comical that other professionals expect to keep a well regarded reputation in their industry without one...

Charging a client for real and notable work is one thing. Charging them because you couldn't take five minutes to properly label and file something and now have to spend a non-trivial amount of time finding it, or being able to confirm you even have it, is another entirely.

Absolutely, there are professionals out there and so-called ones who sadly put themselves above the client and feel anything they do is a chargeable "effort". Take no step back in that approach even, if they know full well whatever they did to satisfy a request took little time to accomplish.

A professional in any profession is one who takes an extra step to satisfy and not think of every step as an income. In the end it is not good advertising of services offered when penny-lizing client for every single request. Why not charge for each call answered or email replied to? Cost of doing business is part of being in business.

In this case finding the files should cost nothing. What client wants to do with the found files is another matter. If the idea is to sell the files/negatives and essentially release them for good, is a matter of how that affects future return on keeping them for eventual re-orders (hardly likely) . Using them to get more prints to the client is a rather straight forward issue.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

How true. Those damn civil servants who waste our money (and their time):
making sure our food is safe to eat
monitoring our air, water and soil to prevent pollution
teaching our children
conducting basic research into diseases that no private company would fund

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Your exercise in sarcasm goes both ways. Controlling what "civil servants" do or are allowed to do, is something that no country has been able to figure out. Future looks bleak on potential success in this area.

 

[BrianShaw]

I’m not disagreeing, but What does that have to do with photography?

 

[jtk]

I’m not disagreeing, but What does that have to do with photography?

Some folks like to dictate what others "should" do. The answer to this problem has been addresses at SCMP.

Ten years ago the answer was clear in recommendations, price policies and film/proof systems of best wedding labs. They did respect capitalist photographers.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

Some folks like to dictate what others "should" do. The answer to this problem has been addresses at SCMP.

Ten years ago the answer was clear in recommendations, price policies and film/proof systems of best wedding labs. They did respect capitalist photographers.

What's "capitalist photographer"? A moron who charges for everything or one who runs successful business with return customers, maintains cash flow and is in position to see a bright business ahead of him?

No idea what SCMP is. A South China Morning Post?

 

[jtk]

What's "capitalist photographer"? A moron who charges for everything or one who runs successful business with return customers, maintains cash flow and is in position to see a bright business ahead of him?

No idea what SCMP is. A South China Morning Post?

Ignorance "should" not lead to bliss. Calling capitalists "morons" is repellant.

 

[Pieter12]

Getting back to the original post. Just by the fact that you are asking this question, this is not a big or relevantly important client. I hope the client was requesting prints and not digital files. If the print order is large enough, eat the cost of locating the files, you will be making money off something that was no longer expected to generate income. If the client wants digital files to produce their own prints or otherwise display the images, then a charge is certainly in order. Was the client asking for digital files that they had lost or misplaced? If it is your business model to give the client digital files, unless they are lo-res for web use, I have two observations: First, by giving them the equivalent of originals, they should assume the responsibility for safeguarding those files. If the originals had been negatives, how would the photographer be expected to replace those? Second, I hope you charged the client an amount commensurate with the value of an original file, After all, most wedding and event photographers will either work for a flat, work-for-hire fee and walk away from the job, or expect to have income from prints and albums. I go back to the fact that 9 years is a long time for anyone with a decent amount of business to be expected to have records readily available and be able to produce those at no charge. I don't even think the IRS expects you to keep records that long.

 

[MattKing]

I go back to the fact that 9 years is a long time for anyone with a decent amount of business to be expected to have records readily available and be able to produce those at no charge.

Readily available and be able to produce at no charge - no.
Reliably available and be able to replace at reasonable cost - yes.
Part of this is due to the nature of the "records" - these aren't copies of nine year old invoices, they are the actual work product themselves, and the whole reason customers contract for them is to be able to have them and enjoy them for a (hopefully) long time. The potential for customers requiring copies at some time in the future is both very real, and capable of being profitable for the photographer.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Getting back to the original post.... I go back to the fact that 9 years is a long time for anyone with a decent amount of business to be expected to have records readily available and be able to produce those at no charge. I don't even think the IRS expects you to keep records that long.

Doctors only have to keep records for 8 years.

 

[MattKing]

As a lawyer, I had files that were of a nature that they were required to be stored indefinitely.
I also had files that could be destroyed after seven years.
But when the contents of the file has value in itself - think of an original Will, or a deed of grant of a life interest in personalty (legally on shaky ground) - than it is the thing itself that retains value, and therefore needs to be preserved.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

As a lawyer, I had files that were of a nature that they were required to be stored indefinitely.
I also had files that could be destroyed after seven years.
But when the contents of the file has value in itself - think of an original Will, or a deed of grant of a life interest in personalty (legally on shaky ground) - than it is the thing itself that retains value, and therefore needs to be preserved.

Matt, don't lawyers have a legal, fiduciary responsibility to protect certain documents or evidence? I don't think it's the same with photography unless it was contractually called for.

 

[Pieter12]

A commissioned photograph 9 years old has very little value except to the subject or interested parties. There is no obligation, unless stipulated in writing, that a photographer keep anything for that long.

 

[AgX]

A commissioned photo typically has no commercial value than for the one who ordered them. The fact of personality and similar rights already make them practically worthless to anyone else.

 

[dutchsteammachine]

When I last hired a wedding photographer, many years ago, the contract clearly stated that the negs would be archived for 5 years to provide for reprint orders. Almost to the day, 5 years later, I received a solicitation to purchase the negs or they would be destroyed. I really appreciated that kind of contractual clarity and follow-up b

Curious, did they specify if you would also be buying the copyright and licencing rights for the photos in the negatives?

 

[AgX]

As a side note: is a former customer returning for re-prints not also a chance to achieve an order for a new portrait session, anniversary are a complete different photo job?

 

[MattKing]

The point of all this is that it is irrelevant what the OP is required by law to do - that would be determined only by contract and any terms that might be implied by any applicable consumer protection legislation. I brought up reference to one set of legal requirements to point out that you can't use them to apply to other situations.

Matt, don't lawyers have a legal, fiduciary responsibility to protect certain documents or evidence? I don't think it's the same with photography unless it was contractually called for.

At the risk of getting down into the weeds, the duty is probably neither a legal one or a fiduciary one, unless the terms of the retainer specify that.
It is a duty to not be negligent - to safeguard against problems arising in the future that could be resolved if the items were kept. And to help you protect yourself if you are sued!

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The point of all this is that it is irrelevant what the OP is required by law to do - that would be determined only by contract and any terms that might be implied by any applicable consumer protection legislation. I brought up reference to one set of legal requirements to point out that you can't use them to apply to other situations.

At the risk of getting down into the weeds, the duty is probably neither a legal one or a fiduciary one, unless the terms of the retainer specify that.
It is a duty to not be negligent - to safeguard against problems arising in the future that could be resolved if the items were kept. And to help you protect yourself if you are sued!

Maybe this is a little off topic. But wouldn't a lawyer have to keep a will for example especially in a state like Florida where copies are not accepted, only originally signed wills. I knew someone once where they couldn't find anything but a copy when their relative died. When they went back to the law firm the original lawyer had passed away a number of years earlier. I think they were fortunate that the firm did have one of the originals. How is stuff like that handled?

 

[cowanw]

Regarding Medical files, the term is 10 years in Canada except for children in which case it is 10 years after the child turns 20, so maybe 30 years.
Not surprisingly in the US it varies by state from 5 years to 30 years. Curiously Doctors my not have to keep them at all if that is what not applicable means in the information. There are no federal retention times specified.
It is interesting that there is a such a binary understanding to the responsibility to retain negatives/files. I wonder how closely that relates to age?

 

[BrianShaw]

Curious, did they specify if you would also be buying the copyright and licencing rights for the photos in the negatives?

I really don’t recall. Sorry.

 

[Bony R]

In my opinion, you should only charge a fair amount for printing, not to make any extra charges for finding them.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Hey Guys! I am a wedding photographer. A client contacted me recently who apparently lost her wedding photos. I shot her wedding 9 years ago.
She asked me to find out whether I still have their images. It would take me a half a day to go through all the archives.
My question: Do you charge a fee for providing images 5 years after you shot a client's wedding, portrait session, etc?
If yes, how much and how do you explain the clients that a fee is involved...?

Thanks a bunch!
Otto, Miami

asålways, you must charge for your time and what it is worth to you.

 

[BradS]

Interesting thread. I wonder what the OP ended up doing.

 

[BradS]

Being a capitalist is repellent, fixed that for ya.

Read "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and get back to us.