Foreign Photo Agencies

[Melany]

I was contacted by someone at Iber Press Photo News Agency asking to syndicate one of my photos. This company is based in Rome, but I remember reading somewhere that it's a pain to deal with foreign companies (can't remember where I read it, or even the "gist" of the conversation)

Has anybody ever used this agency? How complicated is it to use a foreign company?


A side note: The photo they want has became my 'most stolen photo' from Flickr. I'm getting really frustrated, I found it on yet another blog this morning. At least THIS ONE linked back to my Flickr. I'm curious how much money they make from advertising.
I think I'll rework it and add my "big honking" watermark, and swap the files out.


Edit: Did I mis spell "foriegn? I before E except after C, except "foreign" looks right to me.

[Tom]

Water mark with a copyright notice. It should have the copyright symbol, your name and the year it was taken. And file the pictures with the US Copyright office.

I've never heard of that Italian photo agency, so I can't tell you anything about them.

[debbry531]

I haven't worked with any foreign photo agencies, but I have dealt with book publishers from Poland and Japan. The main issue is payment - we managed to work around the paperwork with the Japanese publisher by using a credit card to make the payment (actually via PayPal), but for the Polish publisher, I had to file a form with the US government to receive a document that the publisher needed to avoid paying a huge tariff (I think). It's a pain in the butt, but my understanding is that once it's done once (per country), it's done. Other than that, I had no issues.

[Outlander]

I've sold photos to a foreign company.
The problem was payment. They couldn't seem to understand PayPal, but they finally settled on sending a Western Union money order ( all done electronically ) and I just went to the bank inside WalMart and collected the cash.

I did put the image on a temp site that needed a password to download.
As soon as I got the money I emailed them the password.

[Melany]

Would it be a good idea to ask first how they handle payment to a 'Murrican fotografo?

[TxTowman]

I wish I had these kind of problems!

I wish you the best with it.

[Melany]

Doesn't seem so complicated now. The do a bank transfer for payment. They want exclusive rights in European countries - not a big deal since I don't have a huge following there :-/
i'm gonna go for it and see what happens.

[Tom]

Charge more for exclusivity.