What in the holy hell .......

I use my 2200 anyway, thank God.

Umm ... frankly, I am a bit iffy on this one.

It is refreshing to see someone actually carring about copyright laws for pictures ... but I mean ... how much of a professional is the person at Wal*Mart? How are they trained to spot a professionally shot picture?

I've seen some rsixth graders take some better pictures than some professionals.

I guess the answer is to always take shitty pictures; luckily I've got that covered.

My take on it is simple: don't get your film processed at Wal Mart if you are looking for professional quality and service. Some idiot kid at a counter is in no way qualified to determine the "professional" status of my or many SG shooters' pictures. There are three places in the country that I am will send my stuff.

I can't imagine anyone who put time, effort, and money into their work would go to Wal Mart for processing.

Hmm, thats an interesting issue.

I work in a photographic lab myself, and there has been the occasional time that I have had to tell a customer we were not at liberty to print images that had either a Sears Portrait Studio copyright, or a photographer's copyright on the image. We needed written release to do such photos.

As for someone having to 'decide' that the image looks 'too professional' to print, is totally ludicrous.

If there's a blatant copyright on the photo, we'd get our asses sued if it ever went to court. But whos to say someone's Photoshopped image isn't theirs?

There's a very fine line there. Somewhere.

I had that happen when I made a copy of an 8x10 I shot. I went home, found the negative (I couldn't find it at first, hence making a copy of a print) and then proceeded to bitch them out. I havn't had a problem with them since.

That is the one big problem I see with going to a digital camera. I like the quality but with film I can produce a negative.

if something like that happened to me like in that story of the lady in henderson i would call the cops for with holding personal property. shit most people who work at wal mart couldnt even answer simple questions on electronics. my friend loves goin into the electronics department and screwing with the people.

People have had similar problems getting reprints of stuff I used to restore for them... So I just started signing a release... Printed of my computer solves the problem completely.

I imagine who ever took your stepson's school photo owns the copyright for that image. Therefore, the Target clerk was correct in refusing to copy it.

The whole "it looks too professional" part is just ridiculous, though.

Well, to be fair, he's both right and wrong. The real problem is that professional photographers have been operating under a legal fiction for over a century now, because, well, they had the negatives, and it didn't make a damn bit of difference. Now, that digital imaging has rendered that moot, they have a real problem and cant quite figure out how to adapt, as they're mostly loosely affiliated solo professionals.

Photographers essentially assert copyright ownership in things that really are works for hire. It ensures that they get paid, but it leaves a fairly nebulous question as to whether you can contract away your rights as the person hiring the creative work. Here, your wife likely paid $10 for a print, not the right to make copies. Is that legitimate, is that fair use, nobody really knows. What Target knows, though is that you're not going to sue them and trade associations might, so they're not getting in the middle.

Costco supposedly does a top job printing digital files, for something like 20 cents per 4x6, and they even have profiles available for their printing equipment.

Of course these places aren't pro labs, but do a pretty good job considering their prices.

I had that happen to me when I took some photos I had taken for a class to walmart to be copied for some relatives. I had to show them my notebooks and notes, along with the negatives - so they finally gave in after persisting that the photographs were indeed taken by a professional and not myself.

These weren't even digital photos, just photos I had hand developed from my Nikon.

*shrug*

[Edited on Jun 07, 2005 8:20PM]

This is more fucking retarded than the last month of Politics news to pass through here.

In fact this step is TOTAlly and COMPLETELY biased against creative people. I have taken many "professional looking photographs" and half of em were by accident.

I don't even know how this could possibly, in any way, shape, or form, be legal.
Honestly, somethign so subjective as proffesional looking can't be legal, I know it.

It's actaully helping creative people out.

The amount of people who take "professional" pics is much smaller than the amount of people trying to illegaly copy photos.