Sam's Club Photo Rant

[qbee42]

Warning: this is a major rant. If you don't want to hear a rant, turn back now.

My wife has decided to hang a bunch of new photos. It's one of those typical wife things, where she suddenly decided that she needed to hang wedding photos of the kids and rock climbing photos from some of our climbing trips. She took down existing artwork, bought a bunch of new frames, sorted through thousands of digital photos, and finally uploaded a scad of them to Sam's Club. She picked Sam's Club because they print the photos locally, and she could pick them up this week and get them up before this weekend, when the kids will be home. Getting them up this weekend was important to my wife. We try to support local businesses, so local printing is a plus. We do try to shop locally, but it's getting nearly impossible.


We stopped at Sam's tonight to pick up the photos, which should have been a simple process. It wasn't. The woman at the photo counter was immediately confrontational. She wanted to know who took the photos. My wife innocently answered that she really didn't know: some were ours, some were from friends at the wedding, and some were from the wedding photographer. That was the wrong thing to say. As soon as the magic words “wedding photographer” were uttered, the photos were unavailable. Sam's Club is worried about copyright violations. Sam's Club would not release the photos without a copyright release from the photographer. I understand the legal aspects. I was a professional photographer, and I still do some professional work. In this case the whole thing is silly beyond belief. The photos contain no copyright mark, digital or otherwise. The photographer is a friend who did the shoot as a favor. None of this made any difference to the drones at Sam's Club.


Here is where this episode took a surreal turn. My wife prepaid for the photos on-line with a credit card. By doing so Sam's gave her a few extra prints as a bonus. The woman behind the photo counter told us we couldn't have the wedding prints, nor could she refund our money. The local Sam's Club does not take Master Card, and my wife paid on-line with Master Card, therefore the local store could not refund our money. The photo drone suggested we might be able to get our money back by applying on-line. We said we didn't think so. I'm normally a very patient person, but this pushed me past my limit. Fortunately the store manager was more rational and agreed to refund our money. We left without any photos.


I find this whole experience disheartening. I liked getting prints from the local Sam's Club, but now I am disinclined to ever patronize them again. I suspect I will simply order from one of the many Internet photo printers.


My other disappointment comes from our crazy copyright laws. If the photos aren't marked, why should it be the photo printers job to guess which ones are copyrighted and which ones aren't. It's madness. How can they tell? My wife could simply have said her husband took the photos and all would have been peachy keen. Sam's Club needs to rethink their policy.


Tom

[jayman]

Tom

Um .... hmmmm ... wow? Perhaps holy s***? Maybe holy f***???

Surreal to say the least.

On my home network I have a HP Color Laserjet 3600N. When you fiddle with settings and use laser photo paper, it does *very* good prints. I have an older HP PSC-1610 (Non networked) that also does *very* good color photo prints

So unless you need something really huge, why waste your time dealing with Sammy, or anybody else?

Anyway, it's not like the photos were hot steamy ones. Right?

Um, right???

jay

[Rae Vynn]

I agree. That sucks.

[efusco]

I'm sorry it was so frustrating, but no copyright mark is necessary. if you submit anything that looks professional they really have no choice but to refuse to give them to you. Now, the other part (refund, confrontational attitude, etc.) is unacceptable and should, indeed, have been handled better.

B/C I do some studio work and my photos are fairly professional I actually have and keep a release on file at the local wal-mart where we usually get our christmas photos made.

But anything that looks like a scan of a professional photo that they do print and get sued for will kill them financially. They've got disclaimers all over the place. A release from you friend is likely your best bet in the future if you choose to use them.

[jayman]

Geez, with crap like that I think I'll just keep buying toner cartridges for my CLJ 3600N

[qbee42]

Originally Posted by efusco

I'm sorry it was so frustrating, but no copyright mark is necessary. if you submit anything that looks professional they really have no choice but to refuse to give them to you. Now, the other part (refund, confrontational attitude, etc.) is unacceptable and should, indeed, have been handled better.

B/C I do some studio work and my photos are fairly professional I actually have and keep a release on file at the local wal-mart where we usually get our christmas photos made.

But anything that looks like a scan of a professional photo that they do print and get sued for will kill them financially. They've got disclaimers all over the place. A release from you friend is likely your best bet in the future if you choose to use them.

I understand the legal issues, but they are asinine at best. That's why the last part of my rant was directed at our dumb-a** legal system. Why should a photo printer have to guess at what is copyrighted. Even crappy photos belong to their photographer. There is simply no good metric to determine what is copyrighted and what is not. For the time being, all you have is the word of the person requesting the prints, so have them sign a form stating that they have the right to reproduce all of the photos in the job. If a person wants to lie about that, they can also produce a bogus release form. They could take a page out of your book and submit their own release form. The whole process creates inconvenience and adds no value. The burden for obeying the law should reside with the person submitting the material, not with the service provider.

I also understand why the photo shop gets sued in the event of an infringement. It's because they have money, and you always go for the deep pockets. I would say more, but this is a subject that deserves its own rant.

If you want to talk about overhauling the intellectual property laws, I'm all ears.

Tom

[jayman]

IP laws ... photography. When I renewed my Canadian passport last summer, I needed to submit official Passport Canada documents and the photographer actually had to sign them. Everything comes in a big manila envelope.

Passport Canada: Canadians - Photos

Hey Tom, that one guy looks vaguely like you. He was rejected too. Hmmmmm.

My Nexus card, I took care of that at the airport in Winnipeg. Actually, took care of most of it online at the Global Online Enrollment System portal, then went to see the CBP guy at the airport

NEXUS Enrollment Centers - CBP.gov

where I was fingerprinted and retina-scanned. As I was waiting for the final processing, I casually mentioned to the CBP guy I had a security clearance and my prints were already on file at AEFIS.

He looked up a bit of information, then said "Yep, you are, and looks like you're already approved."

[qbee42]

I should know better than to get upset by stupid laws. It's like Don Quixote tilting with windmills, but the sheer lack of logic drives me insane. I value logic and internal consistency.

I may have to try Jayman's program of heavy drinking.

And to answer Jayman's comment, yes, that guy does look a bit like me. Perhaps I was attempting to get a Canadian passport.

Your comment about having the photographer sign for the passport photos made me think about what would happen if you took them yourself? Would you sign your own form? I've done that sort of thing on many occasions, where I was both the producer and consumer of some official item. I had to do that when we documented our sailboat. The documentation process requires forms from the manufacturer and the buyer. We were both, so I filled out and signed all of the forms, essentially selling the boat to myself. It was a bit silly, but it least it was logical and consistent, unlike some laws...

Tom

[fuzzy1]

Originally Posted by qbee42

... and some were from the wedding photographer. That was the wrong thing to say. As soon as the magic words “wedding photographer” were uttered, the photos were unavailable. Sam's Club is worried about copyright violations. Sam's Club would not release the photos without a copyright release from the photographer. ...

We paid a somewhat higher initial fee to our photographer to get the raw film, giving us ownership and possession of the negatives. But I recall nothing about a copyright release. Does this mean that we will have a difficult time getting additional prints in the future?

...nor could she refund our money. The local Sam's Club does not take Master Card, and my wife paid on-line with Master Card, therefore the local store could not refund our money. ...

This one is easy. No product delivered, no payment. Dispute the charge through the credit card company, and if you are upheld, I think the merchant even has to pay a chargeback fee.

It is fortunate for everyone that the manager was more rational.

[qbee42]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1

We paid a somewhat higher initial fee to our photographer to get the raw film, giving us ownership and possession of the negatives. But I recall nothing about a copyright release. Does this mean that we will have a difficult time getting additional prints in the future?

You will need a written release if you deal with an outfit like Sam's Club.

This one is easy. No product delivered, no payment. Dispute the charge through the credit card company, and if you are upheld, I think the merchant even has to pay a chargeback fee.

It is fortunate for everyone that the manager was more rational.

After we got to the store manager she agreed to refund our money on the spot, in cash.

Tom