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Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer slams CBS for asking for free photos

by 24 Comments

Carson_top

Chances are that in the time it took you to read this sentence, a photographer (or ten) was asked if his photos can be used for free.

This happens all the time and has gotten to the point where it doesn’t faze most people, but when a company valued at over $30 billion asks a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer if they can use his photos in exchange for credit, you know you’ve hit rock bottom.

Keep reading to view the correspondence between award winning photographer David Carson and a Twitter account belonging to CBS.

Several days ago David posted photos on Twitter from a football game that was interrupted by gun fire nearby.

Soon after he received a comment from an account named ‘mhsCBS’ asking if they could use the photos on “all our platforms”. Obviously they didn’t want to use the photos completely for free – they offered to credit David and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for which he works.

I’m not flat out against providing photos for free. I think it all depends on where you are as a photographer, who the client is, what you’ll get out of it and many other factors.

But, and this is a big but, when you’re a winner of what is probably the most prestigious photojournalism award in the world and the party asking to monetize your hard work is a giant money-making corporation, there can be only one answer:

“@mhsCBS no, you can’t have my photos for free, I’m a professional your offer is insulting”.

It seems like ‘mshCBS’ tried saving face by responding that he could respond with his professional fee:

but Carson didn’t let them off the hook so easily:

It appears that ‘mshCBS’ gave up on getting photos from David as they never responded, but that doesn’t mean they’ve changed their ways. A quick look at the account’s recent activity shows that this was common practice for them long before they approached David, and now they’ve just moved on looking for other suckers:

Carson_3

[via PetaPixel]

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  • At least they asked the permission…

  • Win

  • Nice! So what did they said? Are they working for credit?

  • I have given many free to those who don’t even ask, never hurts to ask. The word charitable or humble comes to mind

    • not with CBS, they won’t let you advertise for credit to them…….

    • True. Lol. But never hurts

  • bi_right

    @mhsCBS can’t be CBS News’s content. Look at the profile. A couple hundred tweets with horrible graphics. Asking to use people’s pix shot over a dashboard. I dunno whose account that really is but it can’t be the legit CBS.

  • All serious photographers should charge for their work and never, ever give for free.

  • correct reply given in an idiot way… he could reply “it depends how much you are willing to pay” or sorts like that.

  • There’s always work at the Chicago Sun times. Oh wait…

  • I hear Sports Illustrated is hiring

  • DL
  • Angelo

    Well… what’s wrong with just asking? “Ask, and it shall be given you” (Luke, 11:9)

    They never tried to use the photos without permission; they asked for it, and accepted a “no” for answer; they can just keep asking… maybe ten photographers will answer “no”, but one in ten will say “yes”, and one is just enough.

    • GB

      So I guess everyone should always ask for everything for free, like your dentist, doctor, medical insurance, mortgage company, grocery, gas station and on and on. Get real. Do you work for free?!? If so, how do you pay your bills? Oh, I forgot, you get everything for free! ROFLOL

      • Angelo

        You could try asking for free… the worst that can happen is that you will get a refusal.

        And yes, I sometimes worked for free, when I feel that it’s the right thing to do. And I am non the only one, by the way.

        I guess you never heard about things like Wikipedia, for example… have a look at it, you might even learn something.

        • You go around telling people, “Your work is worthless, but I’ll give you a nickel for it. Whaddya say?” and you’ll get a lot worse than just a refusal.

        • Donald S

          Well you are a tool so keep asking for handouts loser.

          • Angelo

            If you really think that, you should never use wikipedia, libreoffice, firefox, or any open source resource. But I guess you are using some of them.

    • Fabrizio F. Caragnano

      Ciao Angelo 🙂 ti scrivo qui seguendo i tuoi commenti sul sito di efficacemente :-),
      se ti interessa il miglioramento personale, ti va di fare una capatina sul mio sito? http://www.studiomepec.it
      Ti scrivo qui perchè usando disqus non ho capito come si fa, se è possibile, comunicare direttamente fra iscritti….
      Sono un Mental Coach, mi chiamo Fabrizio 🙂 dimmi cosa ne pensi, scrivo ogni mercoledì, e due settimane fa ho scritto un articolo proprio in risposta a quello di Giuliodori sulla Teoria del Parcheggio Libero che ha scatenato tutti quei commenti 🙂

      Aspetto i tuoi commenti sul mio sito, a presto 😉

  • Sure you can. Can I bang Kaley Cuoco and get free cable for life?

  • Michael Egbert

    The photographer responded unprofessionally in my opinion. A simple, “My limited license fee per image is $$$.” Instead they acted like an amateur with lens rental fees due.

    Act like a professional and the chances of being treated like one skyrocket.

  • John Sheehan

    There’s something wrong here. Why is “mhsCBS” not verified, like all of
    CBS’s other Twitter accounts. And all it’s tweets seem to be asking to
    use photos, nothing about news stories or what’s coming up tonight. And
    there’s no link to a CBS website. And it only has 38 follows while CBS
    News has 3.9 million followers.

    I don’t think this is a real account.

    • It is a real account, and CBS has confirmed it was their staff sending out the tweets.

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