A Non Kodak Moment

We used to have a television advert about a "Kodak Moment" - it was originally an American ad - you could tell because it was full of apple-pie cheesy-smiling youth running around in a glowing golden coloured background. The grass was a green I've never seen in real life. Even the trees looked edible. A Kodak Moment was anything glorious that should be captured on film, a photo opportunity, something good and positive and happy.

A certain nationally franchised photography studios I've lately been dealing with provides the exact opposite of a lovely Kodak moment. Kodak reversed is Kadok, or Kad for short. My Cad moment came, somewhat surprisingly, after what should have been some fantastic news.

I'd won a national scrapbooking competition. Don't ask me how, 'cause if I knew that I'd have the power to replicate my winnings. Competitions have always been a no-no for me until recently - non-acceptance of a layout of mine is not taken very well. I hate silent criticism. With my luck in this one I must admit to having the feeling that this might be my fifteen minutes of scrapbooking fame. Unfortunately, the organisers of the competition went out and chose three layouts in which I'd used studio photographs on. In good faith, mind you. We'd paid £800 for ten 7x5 photos in a rubbish album, after discussing scrapbooking needs, and the need to scan and reuse my photographs with the sales consultant at the time. Said sales consultant told us that we could easily scan and reuse our photos for personal use, by buying the album. So we bought the album, and I created the layouts. And they won a competition.

On writing to the HQ of this studio with my great news, and asking how they wished to be credited for their photographs, I entered a rabbit warren of bad customer service, dense board of directorship and talk of legalities. The Marketing Department thought it a great opportunity. The board of directors started citing copyright, and the fact the images belonged to them. I started arguing the lack of a physical contract or verbal agreement, going against financial contract legalities and the data privacy act over the use of images which were in affect - of me.

Then - I started arguing some more - how could they support the cost of ?800 for a studio session of £150, and ten digitals printed I apparently couldn't use at all, at the cost of approximately 15p each? That left - approximately £650 worth of album! It must be the most expensive photograph album in the history of mankind. It's made of two posts, some vellum pages, and some handmade paper of unknown acidity value. Slotted into this Album befitting a King's income are the ten digital stills. Of me, my man around the house, and my baby. We only bought the album because that's what the digitals came in.

And besides, if they wanted copyright over their darn images, then they still had it - back in their offices where the digital originals still presumably sat for them to use (yeah, right! - why do I not think they deleted them off the hard-drive as soon as we left the premises?).

I tried to explain scrapbooking to them, even sent an email with lots of links to local and international forums. If they'd bothered to go to any of these, they'd have seen the vast marketing opportunity they had before them, and the huge need, nay, obsession we scrappers have over HAVING OUR PHOTOS TAKEN. Surely, are we not in the same industry here? Cad studio didn't look at the links - their response was that it was against company policy and they couldn't be bothered (sorry,  "could not afford the time" was the formal stance and I must not misquote them, must I?) to look into all other publications or websites for the usage of "their" images.

At this point my somewhat stilted laughter turned into hysterical sobs, and it wasn't even that time of the month. They made me feel a bit dirty really - insinuating that my precious scrapbooking hobby was akin to being published in something like the latest Nationalist party's propaganda publication.

Mrs Manager of Customer Mis-Services then started going on about copyright again, and how any professional studio or photographer disassembling their products would find the copyright caption on the frame itself. Logically her email made no sense - I wasn't a professional anything, and I had not disassembled a frame, as we'd not bought one in the first place. And the album prints don't have a copyright emblem anywhere on them. Not that I'd disassembled anything in the first place. That's when I realised that Mrs Mis-Services had the extraordinary ability to actually type an email without knowing how to read one. I know how she did this, I've worked it out - she uses one of those new-fangled voice - writers, like the blind use. She just dictates in what she wants to say, without ever having to read something.

When we started contemplating copyright and use of photographs of "US" we really started our heads spinning (and those of our friends, family, workmates, direct neighbours, indirect neighbours, and the woman down the post office who listened kindly) - what if we'd taken the photographs we thought we'd paid for, and framed them up and gave them away? What if one of those framed portraits sat in the living room of some rich person (okay, so this isn't exactly feasible in my family, but work with me) and then House and Garden came in and took some photos, and published the living room - showing the studio copyrighted photo there for all to see?

Asking them how much copyright might cost us (against company policy, again) didn't work. My final resort of pointing out that I would pass on all their interesting information to 4000 members of a UK forum I belonged to - didn't work either. I'm sure that the marketing man probably went home that night and had bad dreams, but Mrs Mis-Services probably went home to her mother, and thought nothing of it. I say that nastily but realistically, as I don't think anyone of that attitude can maintain a husband, and some time ago she divorced and moved back in with her elderly parents and a cat. And if that isn't already the case, then I'm sure all the bad karma winging it's way merrily to her at the moment might mean a marriage break-up in the near future. Or at least being stuck in a tube strike for three days, with nothing to eat.

I changed my competition layouts for three others. And the local franchise of the CAD studio where my husband works lost out on ten orders and sessions it was about to get from some very affluent Americans-with-family. People who earn more money in a week than the studio photography board of directors earn in a year. People who would have paid ten times £800 for their lovely family portraitures. Our other local franchise where we initially were sold the photos we-could-not-apparently-use also just lost out on three opportunities to sell their expensive products. I love the power of word of mouth.

One rich American fellow my MATH works with summed it up nicely - he pointed out that any reasonable company would have seen the nice and free marketing opportunity towards having their stuff published and credited in a book entitled "The Best of...anything" and grabbed it, and he personally doesn't deal with fools. So he cancelled his appointment with them. That'll teach me for trying to deal with fools also - especially ones who can't read.