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I'm surprised this quote hasn't generated much comment. This is a very consumer-friendly idea, but a major change in business model for professional photographers.
Professional photographers, for what I know, give the option to transfer the copyright to the client, at a price. The price is the missing point here.
For what I know also in the film world of yore a professional photographer might have given the negatives to the client, but again, at a price.
Basically you shoot a marriage and you know that half the proceeds, or more, will not come from the couple but from the additional pictures which will be requested by the friends and parents. The client couple can buy the copyright, or the negatives, from the photographer, but they would have to pay twice. The normal logic is that those friends/parents who want pictures will contact the photographer and will pay for them. The other option has always been on the table as far as I know, but not for free.
In the digital world this is actually the most sensible solution, as the pictures you give around are easily reproducible and most people would be content with digital images of the marriage to be seen on a monitor. So the photographer might prefer to be paid for the job rather than for the final product. For what I know, this is basically the prevalent model nowadays for marriages. The photographer gives the images in digital format and that's it.
In Italy (and I suppose elsewhere) ceremony photographers have to endure the competitions of the so-called
scattini, people who arrive at the beginning of the ceremony, take pictures of people outside the building, rush to the lab, print the images, and then sell them at the end of the ceremony to the same people. The official photographer cannot prevent this from happening and as you understand that subtracts a lot of potential after-marriage sales. That, again, encourages the official photographer to rely on the "job", the day pay, rather than the prints he can sell to friends and parents.
