WEBVTT
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And this is where the art and the finance kind of come together.
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We've talked about copyright.
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Copyright's not a forever thing.
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Typically will last under current law 70 years beyond your death.
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But that's a long time.
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You may have agreements in place already at the time of your death regarding licensing and royalties or other payments coming in.
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And then you'd have questions about who's entitled to those payments.
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You might want to provide for that in a will.
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Then there's questions like who can negotiate a new license?
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If somebody violates the copyright, who's in charge of enforcing that?
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This photography podcast is brought to you by Frames, a quarterly printed photography magazine.
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Here is today's host, W.
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Scott Olson, with another fascinating conversation.
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Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to another podcast from Frames Magazine.
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My name is Scott Olson, and today, folks, today we are doing something completely different.
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Today's podcast is going to be about something all of us need to consider.
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And I'm going to give you a bit of advice right here at the beginning.
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Hit pause, go get a pen, go get a sheet of paper, because we're going to say some stuff today that you're going to either want to remember or you're going to have questions about.
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This is something that all of us basically fail to consider until the 11th hour, and we actually need to start thinking about it early.
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As a bit of background, as a lot of you know, I'm just recently retired from my teaching job, nothing else, still hanging out.
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But my wife and I started doing stuff that retired people do.
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And one of them was updating our wills.
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And, you know, couldn't even tell you where it is, frankly.
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So we started thinking about that stuff.
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And in the course of those conversations, it occurred to us that not only do we have chairs and silverware and then that kind of stuff to take care of, there's all of these photophiles.
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There is all of this intellectual property, digital property, whatever you want to call it, sitting in a thousand places.
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And what do you do with that?
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How do you think about if you're if you're thinking legacy, if you're thinking transfer, if you're thinking the kind of stuff that you plan for when you get a little bit older?
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I said, what do you do?
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So I started asking around.
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I said, hey, does anybody know a lawyer who handles this stuff?
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And the response I got over and over was, no, I don't, but my lord, if you find somebody, please let us know.
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So I keep asking.
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And eventually I asked Amy Vitali, National Geographic Photographer, good friend of frames, runs Vital Impacts, as you all know.
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And Amy said, not only do I know a lawyer who is really good at this kind of stuff and has joined our board at Vital Impacts, he's also a wonderful, wonderful photographer.
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In other words, she turned me on to David Stein.
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David is a partner at Withers.
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He specializes in tax trust estate charitable planning on his website.
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So I looked him up.
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And I hate to tell you this gang, I got immediately distracted because, yes, he's a lawyer.
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He's a highly recommended lawyer dealing with the kind of stuff we're going to talk about today.
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But he is also the definition of a photographer that I want to be.
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This man has traveled the world.
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There are images from the American West, from Iceland, from Ireland, from the South Pacific.
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There is architecture photography, landscape photography in here that quite unexpectedly just reached out and really grabbed me.
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So what we have is a world-class lawyer and a kick-ass photographer.
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And we're going to talk about what is it, how do we think about the five or six hundred terabytes of information we've got sitting somewhere when we're no longer to access them and think, oh, this is good.
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Or yeah, maybe not so.
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David, welcome to the podcast.
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How are you doing today?
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Um hi, Scott.
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Well, thanks.
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I'm I'm doing well.
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Um I'm extremely humbled by that uh introduction.
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Um and I feel like now anything I say is gonna come up short.
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But thank you for the thank you for the very kind words.
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Um Yeah, I am I am really looking forward to this.
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But let's deal with with you know uh the photography first.
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Um this is marvelous work.
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And and you've clearly been all over the world.
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Um tell me a bit how how you got into photography as more than just here's my intimatic, let me document you know, my lunch.
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Yeah.
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Well, I did start as a kid.
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My my dad was a serious amateur photographer, and he had been photographing since he was a kid.
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Um and uh so sort of grew up around photography and um the principles and uh you know, started with a uh a Nikon FE and uh, you know, went from there.
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Um once my wife and I had kids, we kind of left it for a while.
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And and you know, there were a lot of kid photos.
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Um but uh about probably about 10 years ago now, uh we started traveling again.
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And for me, photography is a big it it's highly connected to travel.
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Um and uh yeah, just started rediscovering the the the art and the the the fun of it and um but with with the new technology um and uh got going again and started coupling uh some of my work travel with some tack-on days of uh of some photography where I could.
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Uh so that that helped facilitate getting around the world because I was already there for something else anyway.
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Yeah, but therein lies the challenge because if there's really no more annoying person on the planet to go for a walk with than a photographer.
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You know, you take 10 steps and you're like, wait, hang on, everybody, I I gotta get this shot.
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Um when you go someplace for something else, how do you, I mean, other than tacking on time, but even then you feel rushed, how do you tack on psychological time, aesthetic time to really do wonderful landscape or architectural work when you're being pulled by somebody else's schedule?
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Yeah, well, I have separated it to a large extent from my family travel.
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Um, I'll bring a camera when I'm with the family, but I do put myself in a different mental place and kind of say that the camera's here.
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If I see something, I'll try to capture it, but this isn't driving you know the agenda.
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And with with the work adjacent photography, it's easier.
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I mean, I have a couple of days before or after a work trip, and they're just they I can just dedicate them to that.
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And um for me, I I would say a big part of the the photography is not just the thing itself, but it's a catalyst for me.
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I I love being out in nature, I love being out under the night sky, kind of love being in quiet places in the world.
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And in theory, I could do all of that without a camera, but in practice I wouldn't.
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Um, like you know, the photography gets me there.
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Yep.
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Yep.
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No, I I I you know, you you look at a mountain range, you look, you look at a forest, whatever, and the act of framing it, even if you never press the shutter release, the act of framing it is an act of focus.
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It's an act of um appreciation, basically.
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You know, not only is this in general beautiful, this is in specific beautiful uh for a particular moment.
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For sure, for sure.
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And it's and it's time, you know.
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I mean, the the times that I most enjoy are the, as probably most of us who do this stuff, you know, are are the quiet times.
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You know, it's it's sunrise, it's sunset, it's the it's the Milky Way and in a in a truly dark place.
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Would I be there without the camera?
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Probably not.
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I'd want to be, but you know, getting out of bed on a cold morning it's it's just nice to uh nice to have something that pulls me there.
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Yeah, and and something you can justify to others.
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It's I why you know why are you going out there?
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I want to feel more deeply.
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I mean that doesn't go real well at the break.
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You know, but you said no, I got to get some images.
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Okay, rock and roll.
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I I know what you're doing now.
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Yeah.
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I'm looking at your list of of galleries here: American West, Asia, Canada, Hawaii, Iceland, um, Ireland, Europe, Norway, Borneo.
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I mean, just you're you've been everywhere.
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Um if you if you had to point somebody to one of your galleries first, which one would it be?
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Well, I have some recency bias, I would say.
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Yeah, okay.
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Um so I kind of tilt to the uh and I I'm a I'm three or four galleries behind.
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Um so I nobody else is behind in posting, just so you know.
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There's not a single other photographer that that's late and wet setting up their website.
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Yeah.
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So um I, you know, I did a trip to Yellowstone in January and have some images from there that are not yet up that I'd like to get up there.
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But yeah, I mean some of the some of the Norway images uh were you know, were special to me just in terms of the creation of them, memory of that.
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So tell no, tell me the story of the very first shot on your Norway portfolio, which is that wave exploding around that rock with the bird sitting on it.
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Oh, yeah.
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God love you for getting this picture.
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I'm jealous as hell.
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But I mean, d tell me the story of this one.
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Well, so this was, you know, this trip was early February and uh several years ago now, um, and it was motivated by you know northern lights while we were in the Lafoten Islands, and for people who haven't been there, it's a lot of the shooting is on beaches.
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Uh most of the destinations are are beaches.
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They're quite beautiful in this sort of cold, rugged way.
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It's not as extremely cold as one might expect when you say, you know, Arctic Circle Norway in February.
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It's relatively mild, but it is extremely changeable.
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And, you know, we this was that shot was from the first day, and we kind of headed down to this this beach, and you know, it was the sun was out and it was kind of looked like a pleasant enough day.
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And within minutes, uh, you know, the sky turned dark and there was we were getting pelted with hail, and that turned to snow, and you know, the and just the wind off the water.
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It was extreme.
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And yeah, I mean, the getting the the wave hit with the bird, and you know, I mean, sometimes it's just luck.
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Uh but but you know, being there is half the challenge.
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So Oh yeah.
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Oh yeah.
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I I'm just chuckling because I I love those trips where you you get your killer shot on the very first day and and you sp and you spend the rest of the trip trying to you know get get back up to that bar.
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Um and and you have some uh shots.
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We we have to get to the to the l lawyering bit here in just a second, but you have some shots that I thought were from um the Great Dunes park in Colorado, but you said they're not.
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And you everybody you you gotta go to Davidstein.zenfolio.com and look at these.
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Those Dune shots, uh tell me the stories there.
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Well, that was that was a really fun, special kind of like work adjacent trip for me.
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That's um those were in White Sands National Monument.
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And although most national parks are open 24-7, that because it's adjacent to the uh the missile base there, has normally pretty restricted access.
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Right.
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But if if you're interested and you go there and you can plan ahead a little bit, you can can write in for an early entry or late stay permit.
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And there are also about, I don't know, maybe 10 or so campsites uh in the dunes that um are not reservable.
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They're on a first come, first serve basis, and you have to hike in over the dunes to get to them.
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So it's not it's not the easiest thing.
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Okay.
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But I had a I had been at a work conference in Dallas and thought, well, this is striking distance.
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So I I hopped a flight to El Paso and rented a car and drove out to Alamo, Gordo, New Mexico, and got you know these sort of permits to go in for sunset and sunrise.
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And it is it's really an amazing, you know, amazing place visually.
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But I I wanted to stay overnight there.
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So I I did my first night in town just at a at a local hotel and then got early entry the next morning, went in and did sunrise and then went to the visitor center before it opened.
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So I was kind of first, I was waiting at the door when they opened it, got my choice of the 10 campsites, and then I went to the local Walmart and bought a tent, a sleeping bag, a mattress pad, a you know, uh a master.
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Well prepared, okay.
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Yeah.
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And, you know, it was probably fifty bucks or so of camping gear.
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I just got the smallest, cheapest version of everything that you could get.
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Um certainly less than a hotel.
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And I I drove around and explored most of the rest of the day.
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And then as as it got to be late afternoon, I went back to the park and got myself settled um in there.
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But I I really had to just, I had my camera gear on my back.
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And so I basically just took all of the camping gear and wrapped it in a tarp and just carried it in front of me.
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It was it was it was a very awkward hike in, but made it and had a, you know, had a beautiful night uh with the Milky Way, and the sand there is is uh silica, so it it doesn't retain the heat.
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Oh, okay.
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And uh so you know, I just sort of lay out on the sand and it was nice and cool, just looking up at the stars and there's a lot of these images that are wonderful, but there there's two.
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There's one where the the dunes really fill the frame, but the mountain range behind them, which is mostly blue, um, you know, fills like the top sliver of of the frame.
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And it's j it it it's an elegant piece.
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Uh that's probably the technical term for this one.
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Um it is smooth, it is calming.
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Um, and I'm looking at it thinking that this is you know, one of the definitions of beautiful.
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Um, and then to sort of contrast it, then you've got the one with the fiery sunset on the you know, beyond the range as well.
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These are just stellar, stellar pieces.
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And you know, I'm not jealous at all of all the other trips, you know, Borneo.
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Come on.
00:15:14.559 --> 00:15:16.799
Um But okay.
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I mean, you and I then both we have terabytes of photographs sitting in the cloud, on a piece of hardware, on our desk or whatever.
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From the point of view of I mean, and what's going to happen with these when I'm gone?
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I mean, can I put electronic files in a will?
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What happens to copyright?
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What happens if they sell and somehow I'm dead, but the money starts coming in?
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From your point of view, what are the questions, you know, before we get to the answers, what are the questions that a photographer should be thinking about in terms of keeping the images somehow present in the universe after we're gone?
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Yeah, I mean, that's I guess that's the place to start.
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Um I think big picture there's a few categories of questions.
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One set of questions is not so much legal as it is organizational, and is just sort of figuring out what's there.
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And it's probably the thing any photographer is sort of you know most capable of doing themselves, though it's admittedly a huge job.
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Yeah.
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But nobody that besides you is better placed to be on top of documenting what exists.
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You know, do you mean in in a way, I mean, my Lightroom catalog is organized by date and nothing else.
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I I don't ever put in keywords and stuff.
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Yeah.
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But it's all there, organized by year.
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Do I need to do something more than that?
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Well, I what I'm talking about is not the organization of the collection itself uh as much as the organization of the information around it.
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Does anybody other than you know how to log into your Lightroom account?
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Does anybody other than you know how to find the the drive that has the Lightroom catalog on it?
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You know, for people who are have their work in uh with galleries or dealers, is there a list of what works or with which galleries and dealers?
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Are there are there written agreements that you know document what the deal is?
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How would anybody figure this out if you weren't here?
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Another thing, as I was thinking about what to talk about, I mean, a a a really interesting set of issues came up that was what about unfinished work?
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This I think is a fascinating topic.
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I mean, if you're let's say you're you're shooting film and you have undeveloped film in the camera, what what should happen with that?
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Does it get processed?
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Who processes it?
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You know, or if you have raw digital files that you haven't gotten around to editing yet, is somebody going to take responsibility to review those?
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Who decides which ones get edited and how?
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You know, because this is this is your legacy.
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So there's a whole set of questions that's around, as I say, first, first, what's there?
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And then second, you know, and maybe the second one's even more important in I would say in many cases.
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When you're not here and the and the work still is here, who's in charge of figuring out what to do with that?
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It may be a very different person from the person that you'd want to inherit the economic rights associated with your work.
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Okay.
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So so you you would you would have a curator or or an aesthetics person as well as a financial person?
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Potentially.
00:18:49.839 --> 00:19:01.200
I mean, I think, you know, like the typical estate plan, the typical will is going to just think about assets and property and say who gets what.
00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:04.799
You know, my kids divide it equally, right.
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Or what have you.
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That doesn't necessarily mean the kids have to be in charge of all the decisions.
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It just means that when when money or assets come out of your estate, they're the ones that are entitled to the the economic rights.
00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:34.880
And people would typically name somebody, an executor, a trustee, uh, you know, there's different legal roles, but who's responsible for managing the estate administration process.
00:19:35.440 --> 00:19:44.079
Typically that person is either a family member or a lawyer or or somebody with financial skills or a CPA.
00:19:44.720 --> 00:20:00.559
But you know, for an artist's estate, you know, we might see that maybe there are two trustees, two executors, and one of them is sort of has the responsibility of figuring out these artistic questions rather than figuring out who gets what.
00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:05.359
Is there you you just you just complicated the universe for me a second ago.
00:20:05.599 --> 00:20:15.839
Um is there sud- is there a difference legally in any way between a negative or a raw file and a finished print?
00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:17.920
Because I I think I keep forgetting who said this.
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:22.799
I think it was Ansel Adams, who talked about how many performances he could get out of a negative.
00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:30.240
So there were different interpretations that were sort of the finished product, but there was that immutable negative as well.
00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:37.039
We've all got raw files, you know, but depending on our mood and you know, our sun sign, we may interpret them differently.
00:20:37.279 --> 00:20:44.079
Is there a reason to think about the electronic files as potentials versus products?
00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:48.640
Um there certainly is artistically, for all the reasons you were just saying.
00:20:48.960 --> 00:21:03.519
And this is where where I was going with this idea that all of this stuff is your legacy when you're alive and you're making your own editorial decisions about which raw files to process, right?
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:18.799
How to process them, what emotional content you want them to convey, which ones might be imperfect in some technical way, but but are meaningful to you and you want to pro you know, how can anybody else make those decisions for you?
00:21:19.200 --> 00:21:26.240
Some people might say, I don't want anybody doing anything with my unprocessed images after I'm gone.
00:21:26.799 --> 00:21:28.799
You know, some artists have said that.
00:21:28.960 --> 00:21:38.319
Um others may, you know, find that they have uh somebody that they know and trust to, you know, to sort of do that for them.
00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:59.279
There was was, I think it was um Gary Winnegrand that left massive amounts of undeveloped film, unproofed roles, you know, contact sheets that hadn't gone further, and there were big issues about the sort of custodians of his estate.
00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:04.319
How do they figure out what to treat as part of his body of work.
00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:09.519
And how do you how do you develop, print, exhibit, and so forth.
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:21.039
So the I think those decisions are mostly curatorial type decisions, but they are things that you could one could dictate and control through a will.
00:22:21.519 --> 00:22:21.759
Okay.
00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:31.359
So so I can as a assign the the the rights to my photographs to a person separate from the more normally defined executor.
00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:32.240
Exactly.
00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:33.119
Exactly.
00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:33.839
Okay.
00:22:34.160 --> 00:22:36.480
What what now talk to me about rights.
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:45.920
If I'm gone, you know, am I do I need to have a line in the will that says the rights to my photographs that nobody's ever seen belong to my family?
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:49.119
Or is that just considered part of the property in general?
00:22:49.839 --> 00:23:01.599
In general, it's going to be if you don't say otherwise, um your property includes all of your property, whether that's you know physical property or intellectual property.
00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:02.240
Okay.
00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:06.319
But um it's always better to be clear.
00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:34.640
And you know I think but I think actually the biggest issues tend to come in because of things that happen during lifetime where people may make well-intentioned promises to say, oh you know, when I'm gone, I'm going to give this to the the museum or this per you know this person or this cause, but they never get around to legally documenting that pledge.
00:23:35.359 --> 00:23:45.680
Then they pass, their will just says it goes to their heirs, but somebody who's been promised the thing surfaces and says, well this was promised to me, but I have no evidence of it.
00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:50.799
You know what how do you and that that can be extremely awkward to say the least.
00:23:51.200 --> 00:23:52.319
I can imagine yeah.
00:23:52.640 --> 00:24:06.559
The I would say the average person that doesn't think about things like this all the time might expect that if they bought a photograph that they would have the right to reproduce that photograph.
00:24:06.799 --> 00:24:08.799
But you know that's not the case.
00:24:09.119 --> 00:24:15.920
You find not infrequently that people innocently violate intellectual property rights.
00:24:16.480 --> 00:24:18.799
They just don't even realize that they exist.
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:25.920
Aaron Ross Powell so as I understand it the minute I press the shutter release I I own the copyright to that picture.
00:24:26.240 --> 00:24:28.079
And I don't need to register it.
00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:32.240
I don't it just the fact that it's mine means it's mine.
00:24:33.440 --> 00:24:42.640
Is copyright transfer different than what we're talking about I mean you can obviously license your license rights to your images.
00:24:43.119 --> 00:24:51.359
You could fully transfer all of the rights to your images either during your lifetime or as part of your estate plan.
00:24:52.000 --> 00:25:05.440
The way typically like we learn about things like this in law school is that your intellectual property connected to a photograph is like a bundle of sticks and each stick is a right.
00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:12.000
But you can you can take a stick out of the bundle and give it to somebody and you keep the rest of the bundle.
00:25:12.319 --> 00:25:12.480
Right.
00:25:12.559 --> 00:25:17.200
Yeah okay yeah um so all of that can be done.
00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:35.759
But you know most typically what you'd expect is that there are you know prints are made um and sold during lifetime or posthumously and when somebody buys a print they really get no rights to the underlying intellectual property.
00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:46.000
They just have a piece of art that they are entitled to display and use for their own purposes but they don't they don't have any other rights to it.
00:25:46.480 --> 00:26:02.000
But our but our heirs have complete rights unless unless unless we specify so if they want to sell it to the ACME shoe company for their advertising campaign and I'm gone, that's completely up to them unless I've specified not to that's right.
00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:02.960
That's right.
00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:13.200
And you know and there are people there are um artists who establish trusts that are specifically for the purpose of managing these things.
00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:27.279
You know, there is an Ansel Adams Publishing rights trust that just handles all of the publishing rights to his work and they have, you know, things have happened um especially in the age of AI.
00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:42.960
There was a whole thing with AI generated images that had been that were on one of the stock photography sites that were being marketed as like Ansel Adams style and uh the you know the trust said well we don't we don't like that you're doing that.
00:26:43.519 --> 00:26:52.960
Using Ansel Adams name, you know, isn't something you have the right to do with your AI generated image and you shouldn't be able to do that.
00:26:53.039 --> 00:26:58.400
And and so you know in the end I think in that case the the images were taken down.
00:26:58.960 --> 00:27:01.920
How do you go about assigning value?
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:03.680
Or do is this even really a question?
00:27:03.839 --> 00:27:09.680
Because I'm thinking right now, you know I've got my you know huge collection of photographs that nobody's ever seen.
00:27:09.920 --> 00:27:13.039
They are by one definition completely worthless.
00:27:13.359 --> 00:27:20.319
But for all I know tomorrow the skies are going to open and one of them goes viral and suddenly it's worth$100 million.
00:27:20.799 --> 00:27:21.599
But that's tomorrow.
00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:30.000
So you know Ansel Adams if I discover a new negative it is both worth worth worthless and priceless at the same time.
00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:33.599
How do you go about assigning value?
00:27:34.319 --> 00:27:57.920
Well quick footnote because I also uh I was you know sort of looking for a couple of anecdotes that weren't from my own practice but um but it uh it was not that long ago there was uh someone bought a a bunch of glass negatives at a garage sale for$45 and said you know what I'm I think these are Ansel Adams negatives.
00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:15.839
You know these these must be worth a couple hundred million bucks or whatever and the there was a whole to-do about the uh the Ansel Adams' grandson said no that's you know they're not authentic et cetera and so there was this whole question of who decides whether they're even yours.
00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:28.319
You know, so so you can get into a lot of challenging questions, um, which is partly why I I led off with kind of documenting what's there to begin with can be, can be really important.
00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:32.319
Um for in the digital age it's a little bit easier.
00:28:32.559 --> 00:28:53.440
For a long time there were issues where you know people had had prints or negatives lying around and you know people who were avid about their own photography might also enjoy collecting other people's photography and there wasn't always a clear record of whether they were the photographer or there somebody else was the photographer.
00:28:53.599 --> 00:28:53.839
Yeah.
00:28:54.319 --> 00:28:55.759
Could be very complicated.
00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:04.480
But yeah I mean in terms of ascribing value to things there I think there's a little bit of a question of why we're asking the question.
00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:05.039
Right.
00:29:05.519 --> 00:29:09.519
In some cases there is an actual estate tax question.
00:29:10.319 --> 00:29:16.720
You know, but in the modern day and age we have very high estate tax exemptions.
00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:29.279
So essentially each person can leave assets to their heirs free of estate tax uh up to$15 million.
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:30.400
Okay.
00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:38.400
And so for a married couple that's thirty million dollars they could leave to their children, for example, without owing any tax.
00:29:38.720 --> 00:29:38.960
Okay.
00:29:39.279 --> 00:29:52.240
So you know most people don't have to think about estate taxes and I think I it's probably if anybody on the call is above those thresholds and wants to talk about estate taxes, I'm you know okay.
00:29:52.559 --> 00:30:02.559
Yeah but I'm but it's I think for efficiency of the agenda today w it's probably not relevant to most people to talk too much about the estate tax.
00:30:03.759 --> 00:30:23.039
So then the question is about you know division of an estate what one of the things about a collection of any sort um is it's often desirable to maintain the thing as a as a unitary whole and not fracture it.
00:30:23.359 --> 00:30:23.680
Okay.
00:30:24.880 --> 00:30:38.960
So if you have four kids, one could say, well look we're gonna just you know give everybody one quarter of the rights and all of your you know your everything in your collection.
00:30:39.759 --> 00:30:49.119
Somebody could say we're gonna go through some complicated process where people can can pick which ones they want and you know that would take forever.
00:30:49.359 --> 00:31:00.240
I would say the most common thing that happens with complicated assets is that they're sold in the market and the answer is that the market determines the value.
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:00.559
Okay.
00:31:01.200 --> 00:31:14.480
They're they're put they're they're sold at auction or what have you and and then the proceeds are almost by definition the fair market value um and the heirs split up the cash.
00:31:14.640 --> 00:31:20.880
That's not a very romantic or you know kind of loving feeling way to do it.
00:31:21.119 --> 00:31:30.240
But in practice um a lot of even the things that we're passionate about in our lifetimes, you know, our heirs don't necessarily want to have to deal with.
00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:32.160
Let's take just a quick break.
00:31:32.400 --> 00:31:35.039
We hope very much that you're enjoying today's episode.
00:31:35.279 --> 00:31:40.160
The very fact that you are listening to this podcast suggests that photography means a lot to you.
00:31:40.240 --> 00:31:46.319
And if that's the case you might want to have a look at Frames Quarterly printed photography magazine.
00:31:46.480 --> 00:31:50.160
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00:32:02.160 --> 00:32:11.920
And now back to today's conversation is it possible um you know I've passed my kids have now they now own the rights for them to donate that.
00:32:12.079 --> 00:32:18.480
So like let's say to the college where I teach the college and they come up with an agreed upon valuation.
00:32:18.799 --> 00:32:33.519
They get the donation benefit the college gets a bunch of electronic files is that the way that would work that's mostly the way that would work um the value for purposes of the deduction would have to be determined by an independent appraisal.
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:40.720
So you'd have to get get an appraiser to come in sit down with 18 terabytes of undeveloped shirt.
00:32:40.799 --> 00:32:41.119
Great.
00:32:41.440 --> 00:33:00.160
Yeah and they you know I'm sure they wouldn't go through each image what you know they would make some assessment based on who you are and any any you know evidence during your lifetime of recognition etc and you know they'd they'd ascribe some some value to it which would you know probably be depressingly low.
00:33:00.240 --> 00:33:09.839
I I haven't seen your work but just the nature of the thing it's worth at least 1995 I want you to know the whole collection 1995 or a supreme pizza depending on which is less.
00:33:10.319 --> 00:33:11.680
But don't but don't order now.
00:33:11.920 --> 00:33:12.160
Okay.
00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:20.880
Yeah yeah there's more okay yeah uh yeah no so there's uh that that's how that would work though.
00:33:20.960 --> 00:33:33.039
I mean if if they just inherited your um your work um and one of the things they could do with it is donate it if they wanted to set up a trust they have to do you know make an LLC or something on their own?
00:33:33.519 --> 00:33:39.119
I mean you could do it during your lifetime um it could be done under the terms of your will.
00:33:39.440 --> 00:33:39.680
Okay.
00:33:40.079 --> 00:33:49.440
Um but but if it if you hadn't done anything and it just popped out the other side to them then then they could certainly do it after the fact.
00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:50.079
Okay.
00:33:50.400 --> 00:34:06.240
Well what are some of the other you know things we should be thinking about I mean right now I'm I'm also thinking and this is a mundane question every single because of my limited uh storage on my laptop every single image I've got is in the cloud and and you know do I know where it really is?
00:34:06.400 --> 00:34:07.519
No, it's just out there.
00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:15.840
Um do I need to download all that and put it on you know a drive that's physically sitting on my desk to say you know this is my collection?
00:34:16.079 --> 00:34:17.840
Uh no you don't have to do that.
00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:35.039
I but I do think going back to something I said earlier having some playbook or guidebook you know for people to to refer to if you're not here is you know including passwords and other access details.
00:34:35.280 --> 00:34:49.599
Sometimes I'll be just won't have accessed something of my own for a while and you know embarrassingly because I had been relying on my memory as to where you know like I don't even remember how to like what website I'm going to to find it.
00:34:49.760 --> 00:34:53.519
You know, sometimes and um I'm sure we all have these these things.
00:34:53.760 --> 00:35:33.360
So one thing we'll do with with clients very often and this is not you know specific to photographers or or even artists generally but pretty much all of our clients is I'll sort of encourage people to think about, you know, imagine the typical week or month in your life and like everything in your universe that happens in that week or month, all the decisions that get made all the actions get that get taken all the bills that get paid uh all the revenues that get collected et cetera and then take that picture and edit yourself out of it.
00:35:33.599 --> 00:36:43.519
You're a you're a distraction right so remove distraction um like now how does anything in that picture still function that's the situation that your heirs will be left with when you're not around and so kind of anticipating that and creating what I sometimes call the break glass memorandum you know like you've got the the little glass cabinet in the hallway that says case of emergency break glass but instead of having a fire axe behind it there's a there's a binder and it's got a bunch of stuff in it which would include all of this you know all of this kind of detail um not only where where is my stuff stored what's my user ID what's my password uh what credit card is the you know subscription fee attached to and and all those other details but also things like do I have existing licenses out there in the world if they if if they exist are they in writing if they are let's put a copy of the license agreement in the binder.
00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:54.239
And and there I forget the phrase that that our attorney used there's something about proximity to a will that if it's if it's not the will itself but it's with it, it carries legal weight.
00:36:55.119 --> 00:37:02.639
Well there there is um there is a phrase I'm not sure if this is what you're thinking but there is a term called incorporation by reference.
00:37:02.960 --> 00:37:13.679
I that sounds right but maybe yeah that you can sort of in your will you can refer to something that's outside your will if it as long as it's specific enough.
00:37:14.079 --> 00:37:27.440
So um you could say you know well I have a database and things that are in my that are tagged in my database with the following you know description should be treated this way.
00:37:27.679 --> 00:37:39.360
You know so that you're not trying to import into your will a catalog of you know 374000 photos that are meant to go into to the local school.
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:47.440
But if if I say in my will instructions for my photographs are in binder X and and Binder X is somewhere accessible, that counts.
00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:48.639
It counts.
00:37:48.880 --> 00:38:19.360
Usually the way we handle that is not to expect or even prefer necessarily that that makes Binder X a a binding no pun intended like set of in instructions that are legally enforceable by somebody but rather just that you're gonna empower people that you trust to you know do the right thing and then you're gonna give them the tools to do that.
00:38:19.679 --> 00:38:31.760
Because one of the one of the truisms of this stuff is that there's no way to anticipate the future state of affairs that people will be in when you're gone.
00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:32.400
Right.
00:38:32.639 --> 00:38:55.360
And if you make your estate plan, regardless what you know what the assets are, you make your estate plan too replete with black and white rules that have no interpretive element to them, things will break because there something about the there will be something that you didn't anticipate when you wrote the rule.
00:38:55.440 --> 00:38:55.760
Yeah.
00:38:55.920 --> 00:39:00.400
And it'd be like oh if I only knew that I wouldn't have said that rule.
00:39:00.639 --> 00:39:08.719
So we try to avoid writing too many rules and instead instead say these are the people who I trust to make the right decisions.
00:39:09.039 --> 00:39:16.480
And I'm gonna tell them we sometimes do another thing called a letter of wishes which is what it sounds like a movie.
00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:19.760
It's a it's a letter and it's got your wishes in it.
00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:20.239
Okay.
00:39:20.400 --> 00:39:22.960
But it but they're not expressed in legal terms.
00:39:23.119 --> 00:39:29.519
They're expressed in you know kind of philosophical or or sort of purpose oriented terms.
00:39:29.920 --> 00:39:30.960
I have never heard of this.
00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:33.760
So its purpose then would be what?
00:39:34.159 --> 00:39:43.679
Its purpose is to basically tell the people who have to make judgments about your estate what you're trying to accomplish qualitatively.
00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:57.599
So to take something that's more basic and not photography specific, when people have young kids and they're leaving money that's not, you know, the kids aren't ready to get the money yet.
00:39:57.760 --> 00:39:58.079
Yeah.
00:39:58.559 --> 00:40:00.960
Sometimes people will write a bunch of rules.
00:40:01.280 --> 00:40:06.400
Well when the you know when the kid turns 18 give them this much money.
00:40:06.559 --> 00:40:17.679
When they turn 25 give them a third of everything that's left and then when they you know turn 30 give them half of what's left and then when they turn 35 give them everything.
00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:26.320
That's a a very sort of risky thing to do in a way because I mean it's definitive you know when they're going to get the money.
00:40:26.400 --> 00:40:26.639
Right.
00:40:26.800 --> 00:40:37.920
But what you don't know is are they getting a big chunk of money while they're in the middle of a divorce or while they're in the middle of a bank okay you know while they're in rehab.
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:46.320
I mean there's sort of all kinds of things that could go on that would make you say, oh, I didn't really mean give them the money.
00:40:46.400 --> 00:40:46.559
Yeah.
00:40:46.800 --> 00:40:56.719
You know, what I I guess what I really meant was I want them to have the support that comes from that portion of the money existing.
00:40:57.039 --> 00:41:01.360
But I, you know, I I still want it to be protected from third parties.
00:41:01.519 --> 00:41:07.840
I don't want it to end up with an ex-spouse or a creditor or a drug dealer or what have you.
00:41:08.159 --> 00:41:44.320
Yep yep so um so we tend to in these letters of wishes say look I, you know, there's no specific age where I want you to give a specific dollar amount to to my heirs, my kids but I do want you to make sure that if one of my kids wants to be an artist and pursue their passion, that they get enough money out of this pool to allow them to keep the lights on and to feed their kids and to live in a safe neighborhood and give their kids good health care and education.
00:41:44.559 --> 00:41:44.800
Yeah.
00:41:45.039 --> 00:41:53.760
I don't want you to give them so much money that they can afford to never think about working a day in their life and you know buy yachts and airplanes.
00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:56.960
And I want to make sure they're productive members of society.
00:41:57.119 --> 00:42:05.679
And that could be because they're an artist it could be because they're a teacher could be because they're working for an NGO you know whatever it may be.
00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:12.239
And you know kind of putting down these concepts that like this is what I'm trying to accomplish.
00:42:12.400 --> 00:42:20.880
And uh then the people who are in charge of your estate after you're gone, legally they they're pretty much unrestricted.
00:42:21.119 --> 00:42:39.360
They can do anything but you trust them to follow your wishes and even though you you won't be able to predict exactly what that looks like my personal view is it's way more likely to quote unquote work than a system of definite rules.
00:42:40.320 --> 00:42:52.480
You know that I I'm listening to this and I'm remember remembering the movie Time Traveler's wife I'm just thinking Letter of Wishes is a Hollywood movie but you get to go forward and see if it's see if they're actually followed Yeah.
00:42:53.360 --> 00:42:59.119
David, okay coming back specifically to photography, what else should we be thinking about?
00:42:59.679 --> 00:43:07.599
Well we haven't talked I guess too much about uh well I've mentioned it in passing a couple of times, but you know revenue.
00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:08.320
Okay.
00:43:08.880 --> 00:43:13.760
And this is where the art and the finance kind of come together.
00:43:14.079 --> 00:43:14.400
Right.
00:43:14.800 --> 00:43:22.079
So um first of all people may may be aware but there you know we've we've talked about copyright.
00:43:22.400 --> 00:43:29.760
Copyright's not a forever thing typically will last under current law 70 years beyond your death.
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:31.679
But that's a long time.
00:43:31.920 --> 00:43:33.760
Yeah that's a long time.
00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:47.039
And um so you may have agreements in place already at the time of your death regarding licensing and royalties uh or other payments coming in.
00:43:47.440 --> 00:43:55.760
But then there's an and and then you'd have questions about who's entitled to those payments you might want to provide for that in a will.
00:43:56.320 --> 00:44:02.480
Um but then there's questions like who Can negotiate a new license.
00:44:02.800 --> 00:44:08.960
And if if there's if somebody violates the copyright, who's in charge of enforcing that?
00:44:09.840 --> 00:44:16.800
So th this is the reason to set up some kind of an independent trust or independent copyright management company.
00:44:17.199 --> 00:44:17.440
Yeah.
00:44:17.599 --> 00:44:33.679
And I think, you know, it's this may be obvious, but of course, you know, the more the more success you have during life, um, you know, in terms of your work attracting commercial value, the more important that would be.
00:44:34.559 --> 00:44:39.920
Um but there are famous photographers who died without a will.
00:44:40.239 --> 00:44:44.159
And you know, then decisions just fell to their heirs.
00:44:44.400 --> 00:44:47.760
So um Diane Arbos is a good example.
00:44:48.239 --> 00:44:56.800
You know, she didn't have a will, she died, her daughter took over the estate and kind of controlled everything about her work.
00:44:57.599 --> 00:45:00.880
And it's, you know, I think been reported.
00:45:00.960 --> 00:45:04.000
I'm I'm just talking about things that have been publicly reported here.
00:45:04.159 --> 00:45:04.320
Right.
00:45:04.800 --> 00:45:09.360
She controls it very tightly, which might be a good thing.
00:45:09.519 --> 00:45:11.280
Maybe it's what Diane would have wanted.
00:45:11.360 --> 00:45:12.000
We don't know.
00:45:12.159 --> 00:45:31.280
But um but, you know, in terms of having your work be out there in the world and allowing scholarship to be done around it, critical discussion, learning about it, you know, the if it's very, very tightly controlled, there may not that that opportunity may not be there to the same extent.
00:45:31.760 --> 00:45:40.159
So there are judgments to be made, and the default setting is wherever the ownership goes, that's where the control goes.
00:45:40.480 --> 00:45:50.960
So you'd have to really decide whether you want to separate the economic rights from the artistic judgment.
00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:58.000
It strikes me that this is really complicated to think about, but also really simple to solve.
00:45:58.320 --> 00:46:03.440
Just think about it in advance and and set up some kind of, hey kids, this is where everything is.
00:46:03.599 --> 00:46:06.480
Here's the passwords, and here's what I want you to do with it.
00:46:07.199 --> 00:46:12.320
It's not difficult to prepare, but it might be tremendously difficult to fix.
00:46:12.800 --> 00:46:14.320
I think that's very well said.
00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:19.840
I think, you know, kind of doing nothing is is doing a plan.
00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:21.760
I mean, a lot of people, right?
00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:28.159
So a lot of people say, oh, I, you know, I haven't done a will because I haven't, you know, thought of all the decisions.
00:46:28.400 --> 00:46:28.800
Right.
00:46:29.119 --> 00:46:31.199
But you do have a will.
00:46:31.519 --> 00:46:34.559
Like the state provides a will if you don't have one.
00:46:34.800 --> 00:46:42.239
It's not called a will, but by not doing one, you're effectively opting into the default setting.
00:46:42.480 --> 00:46:42.719
Right.
00:46:42.880 --> 00:46:46.239
And that's usually not the right answer for almost anybody.
00:46:46.400 --> 00:47:01.679
I mean, in the in the simplest of cases, I mean, sure, you know, if somebody's got a living spouse and no kids and whatever, you know, it's like, oh, I want 100% of everything to go to my spouse, like that that'll probably happen by default without a will.
00:47:02.079 --> 00:47:23.679
Oh, you know, I should mention, uh, speaking of spouses, just to throw one other point in there, there is a question for married folks about the ownership of the work that they create, especially during the marriage, as to whether they own it or they and their spouse together own it.
00:47:24.480 --> 00:47:30.719
And in the US, we have broadly speaking, two different um each each state has its own rules.
00:47:30.960 --> 00:47:31.440
Oh my.
00:47:31.599 --> 00:47:36.239
Um but some states they they broadly break into two categories.
00:47:36.480 --> 00:47:41.599
So some states have a system that's known as community property.
00:47:42.239 --> 00:48:01.119
And in community property states, broadly speaking, if people create value or you know, during the marriage through their personal efforts, that is considered to be owned by the community, meaning the the the spouses together as a joint asset.
00:48:01.360 --> 00:48:08.639
And unless you specifically kind of contract around that, that's that's the rule in a community property state.
00:48:09.199 --> 00:48:11.679
And and what's the what's the opposite or alternative?
00:48:12.239 --> 00:48:17.199
Yeah, I mean, in non-community states, it's a little more complicated.
00:48:17.599 --> 00:48:25.280
This there's a similar principle there in terms of determining what is separate property versus marital property.
00:48:25.440 --> 00:48:36.880
And there is a thematically similar thing that, you know, the if it's created in the during the marriage, there might be more of a a sort of presumption that it's marital property.
00:48:37.119 --> 00:48:42.960
But in those states, there are a lot of other factors that are brought into the analysis.
00:48:43.039 --> 00:48:55.519
And so people might look at things sort of broader in the totality of the marriage and what's what's fair in in a divorce setting, for example.
00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:58.159
Is there um an employer wrinkle to this?
00:48:58.320 --> 00:49:05.920
If I take a photograph on college time, but for my own artwork, you know, it's not like I'm working for a newspaper and and they are expecting delivery.
00:49:06.079 --> 00:49:10.559
But I I take an artistic shot on a college-funded trip.
00:49:11.119 --> 00:49:18.159
Um as long as it's not work for hire, which um is you know its own category of thing.
00:49:18.639 --> 00:49:20.880
That would be the journalism where I'm working for a newspaper.
00:49:21.039 --> 00:49:21.199
Yeah.
00:49:21.440 --> 00:49:21.679
Yeah.
00:49:21.760 --> 00:49:31.360
And and, you know, a a properly documented assignment would be explicit about whether it's work for hire or not work for hire.
00:49:31.679 --> 00:49:48.079
But I mean, you know, broadly speaking, work for hire, things that you are paid to do to produce for uh, you know, under a specific contractual arrangement, you know, the the resulting work would be owned by the by the payor.
00:49:48.480 --> 00:49:48.800
Yes.
00:49:49.039 --> 00:49:59.760
Um so you know, I mean, uh the school might say, uh, we we want photographs of our new science building that we can use in our promotional materials or whatever.
00:49:59.920 --> 00:50:08.400
You know, they they probably want to own all of the rights to those photographs, not just have a limited license from you as the photo owner.
00:50:08.880 --> 00:50:19.679
Even if somebody said, well, look, it, you know, if it doesn't say work for hire, then it's not work for hire, and the default is you own it, that that may be true in your state.
00:50:19.920 --> 00:50:28.960
I would still say it's smarter to have a piece of paper that acknowledges that it's yours.
00:50:29.039 --> 00:50:31.760
Aaron Powell Yeah, you you've mentioned differences between states.
00:50:31.840 --> 00:50:36.079
Do you happen to know are different countries wildly different in thinking about this?
00:50:36.719 --> 00:50:41.039
I think they're they do range, yeah, quite quite widely.
00:50:41.119 --> 00:50:53.760
And I will say there are, in my experience, there are, you know, large swaths of the world that really aren't all that into the idea of privately owned intellectual property.
00:50:54.159 --> 00:50:54.480
Okay.
00:50:54.719 --> 00:51:01.440
You know, and so you can imagine, you know, countries that have big industries of, you know, knockoff products and things like that.
00:51:01.599 --> 00:51:18.000
You know, they're not necessarily the the sort of mindset and culture and legal system aren't built around the notion that that we own ideas and own artistic creations and and that sort of thing.
00:51:18.239 --> 00:51:23.360
So the whole idea of intellectual property can be a little bit alien.
00:51:23.920 --> 00:51:27.920
And that can be extremely hard to police, because what are you going to do?
00:51:28.159 --> 00:51:32.559
Fly over, fly around the world trying to bring lawsuits in different countries.
00:51:32.719 --> 00:51:34.239
It's it's very difficult.
00:51:34.719 --> 00:51:35.440
Oh my.
00:51:36.159 --> 00:51:55.280
So I mean, basically, you know, if you are of age where uh a will is is not um in just in the back of your mind, it's best to do some thinking, perhaps talk with an attorney and say, okay, you know, let's get my letter of wishes or let's get that spelled out in the will in case something does happen.
00:51:55.440 --> 00:51:58.800
If you are younger than that, accidents may still happen.
00:51:59.039 --> 00:52:03.760
But this is this would be a good time for everybody to sort of say, what are the rules where I live?
00:52:03.920 --> 00:52:07.519
What are the rules that I just need to be aware of?
00:52:07.840 --> 00:52:10.559
Because preparation is a lot easier than fixing it.
00:52:11.119 --> 00:52:11.679
For sure.
00:52:11.920 --> 00:52:31.760
And I think the one thing I would say to anybody is like any big project, if you think about trying to create the perfect estate plan or the most complete estate plan, it's kind of overwhelming and is likely to be somewhat paralyzing.
00:52:32.400 --> 00:52:38.320
Um, on top of the fact that it's a kind of unpleasant topic to think about your own demise.
00:52:38.639 --> 00:52:49.920
So I am usually kind of encouraging people, instead of trying to create the perfect estate plan, is to just create a basically functional estate plan.
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:58.559
Like aim for 85% good and don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
00:52:58.800 --> 00:52:58.960
Okay.
00:52:59.280 --> 00:53:01.920
Um, which it can easily be so often.
00:53:02.079 --> 00:53:07.760
Um, because remember that like right now, your estate plan is probably terrible.
00:53:07.920 --> 00:53:20.000
You know, your your your no-will estate plan that is prescribed by default state law with no personal considerations in mind is a really, really bad plan.
00:53:20.159 --> 00:53:29.360
And to upgrade that from really, really bad to, you know, pretty decent, that step isn't that hard.
00:53:29.599 --> 00:53:29.920
Right.
00:53:30.159 --> 00:53:42.079
Um, and once you've done that, you know, you could catch your breath and take a trip and take some photos and do something else and you know, kind of come back to it over time.
00:53:42.320 --> 00:53:59.519
But in some ways, I would say also if you, you know, if you're talking to a lawyer or other advisor, for most advisors, they're gonna, you know, tend to be focused on the things that they know and do, which are for a lawyer, the the legal documents.
00:54:00.320 --> 00:54:13.360
But I think, you know, as hopefully it was evident from the discussion today, like a lot of the most important things in planning for this group are not really legal decisions.
00:54:13.760 --> 00:54:33.840
They're much more heavily about management of the stuff, documentation of agreements, and identification of people to be responsible for making decisions later, and then creating guidance for those people.
00:54:34.480 --> 00:54:37.599
That that is sound advice at every single level.
00:54:37.920 --> 00:54:40.159
Um, David, this is important stuff.
00:54:40.320 --> 00:54:41.920
I I've enjoyed our conversation.
00:54:42.079 --> 00:54:45.039
And to go back to Step, I'm still in awe of your photography.
00:54:45.199 --> 00:54:48.639
Um there's so much out there that is just beautiful.
00:54:48.960 --> 00:54:56.880
But I frankly, sitting with our attorney when I our wills started to come together and the idea of the photographs got into the back of my mind.
00:54:57.039 --> 00:55:00.719
I thought, oh, I haven't even imagined how to do this.
00:55:00.880 --> 00:55:03.679
So this has been uh helpful and insightful.
00:55:03.760 --> 00:55:04.239
And thank you.
00:55:04.400 --> 00:55:05.519
Thank you very much.
00:55:06.159 --> 00:55:06.880
My pleasure.
00:55:07.119 --> 00:55:07.599
My pleasure.
00:55:07.679 --> 00:55:09.360
It was really fun chatting with you.
00:55:09.519 --> 00:55:15.679
Um, I'm still blushing uh from earlier, but uh I'll try to recover.
00:55:16.239 --> 00:55:22.400
And um uh no, really enjoyed the chat, and uh I hope it was helpful to the audience.
00:55:22.960 --> 00:55:23.599
Frames.
00:55:24.079 --> 00:55:27.360
Because excellent photography belongs on paper.
00:55:27.519 --> 00:55:31.360
Visit us at www.readframes.com.
00:55:31.519 --> 00:55:33.920
That's readframes.com.
00:00:00.479 --> 00:00:04.959
And this is where the art and the finance kind of come together.
00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:06.959
We've talked about copyright.
00:00:07.280 --> 00:00:09.039
Copyright's not a forever thing.
00:00:09.439 --> 00:00:13.279
Typically will last under current law 70 years beyond your death.
00:00:13.519 --> 00:00:14.560
But that's a long time.
00:00:15.039 --> 00:00:24.399
You may have agreements in place already at the time of your death regarding licensing and royalties or other payments coming in.
00:00:24.559 --> 00:00:28.000
And then you'd have questions about who's entitled to those payments.
00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:30.800
You might want to provide for that in a will.
00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:35.200
Then there's questions like who can negotiate a new license?
00:00:35.439 --> 00:00:39.920
If somebody violates the copyright, who's in charge of enforcing that?
00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:48.240
This photography podcast is brought to you by Frames, a quarterly printed photography magazine.
00:00:48.479 --> 00:00:50.079
Here is today's host, W.
00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:54.320
Scott Olson, with another fascinating conversation.
00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:58.479
Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to another podcast from Frames Magazine.
00:00:58.640 --> 00:01:03.359
My name is Scott Olson, and today, folks, today we are doing something completely different.
00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:07.760
Today's podcast is going to be about something all of us need to consider.
00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:10.480
And I'm going to give you a bit of advice right here at the beginning.
00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:18.879
Hit pause, go get a pen, go get a sheet of paper, because we're going to say some stuff today that you're going to either want to remember or you're going to have questions about.
00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:28.640
This is something that all of us basically fail to consider until the 11th hour, and we actually need to start thinking about it early.
00:01:28.959 --> 00:01:36.159
As a bit of background, as a lot of you know, I'm just recently retired from my teaching job, nothing else, still hanging out.
00:01:36.319 --> 00:01:40.159
But my wife and I started doing stuff that retired people do.
00:01:40.400 --> 00:01:43.040
And one of them was updating our wills.
00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:51.519
And, you know, couldn't even tell you where it is, frankly.
00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:54.000
So we started thinking about that stuff.
00:01:54.079 --> 00:02:06.799
And in the course of those conversations, it occurred to us that not only do we have chairs and silverware and then that kind of stuff to take care of, there's all of these photophiles.
00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:14.800
There is all of this intellectual property, digital property, whatever you want to call it, sitting in a thousand places.
00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:17.120
And what do you do with that?
00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:27.039
How do you think about if you're if you're thinking legacy, if you're thinking transfer, if you're thinking the kind of stuff that you plan for when you get a little bit older?
00:02:27.439 --> 00:02:28.319
I said, what do you do?
00:02:28.479 --> 00:02:29.680
So I started asking around.
00:02:29.759 --> 00:02:33.840
I said, hey, does anybody know a lawyer who handles this stuff?
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And the response I got over and over was, no, I don't, but my lord, if you find somebody, please let us know.
00:02:41.759 --> 00:02:42.800
So I keep asking.
00:02:42.879 --> 00:02:50.000
And eventually I asked Amy Vitali, National Geographic Photographer, good friend of frames, runs Vital Impacts, as you all know.
00:02:50.159 --> 00:03:03.280
And Amy said, not only do I know a lawyer who is really good at this kind of stuff and has joined our board at Vital Impacts, he's also a wonderful, wonderful photographer.
00:03:03.520 --> 00:03:05.919
In other words, she turned me on to David Stein.
00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:08.479
David is a partner at Withers.
00:03:08.639 --> 00:03:13.520
He specializes in tax trust estate charitable planning on his website.
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So I looked him up.
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And I hate to tell you this gang, I got immediately distracted because, yes, he's a lawyer.
00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:28.960
He's a highly recommended lawyer dealing with the kind of stuff we're going to talk about today.
00:03:29.199 --> 00:03:33.680
But he is also the definition of a photographer that I want to be.
00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:35.680
This man has traveled the world.
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There are images from the American West, from Iceland, from Ireland, from the South Pacific.
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There is architecture photography, landscape photography in here that quite unexpectedly just reached out and really grabbed me.
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So what we have is a world-class lawyer and a kick-ass photographer.
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And we're going to talk about what is it, how do we think about the five or six hundred terabytes of information we've got sitting somewhere when we're no longer to access them and think, oh, this is good.
00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:09.759
Or yeah, maybe not so.
00:04:09.919 --> 00:04:11.360
David, welcome to the podcast.
00:04:11.439 --> 00:04:12.479
How are you doing today?
00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:13.919
Um hi, Scott.
00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:14.560
Well, thanks.
00:04:14.639 --> 00:04:15.759
I'm I'm doing well.
00:04:15.919 --> 00:04:19.360
Um I'm extremely humbled by that uh introduction.
00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:23.040
Um and I feel like now anything I say is gonna come up short.
00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:27.839
But thank you for the thank you for the very kind words.
00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:31.360
Um Yeah, I am I am really looking forward to this.
00:04:31.439 --> 00:04:35.120
But let's deal with with you know uh the photography first.
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Um this is marvelous work.
00:04:38.240 --> 00:04:40.480
And and you've clearly been all over the world.
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Um tell me a bit how how you got into photography as more than just here's my intimatic, let me document you know, my lunch.
00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:49.040
Yeah.
00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:50.879
Well, I did start as a kid.
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My my dad was a serious amateur photographer, and he had been photographing since he was a kid.
00:04:58.480 --> 00:05:12.959
Um and uh so sort of grew up around photography and um the principles and uh you know, started with a uh a Nikon FE and uh, you know, went from there.
00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:18.879
Um once my wife and I had kids, we kind of left it for a while.
00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:21.680
And and you know, there were a lot of kid photos.
00:05:21.839 --> 00:05:28.480
Um but uh about probably about 10 years ago now, uh we started traveling again.
00:05:28.639 --> 00:05:33.040
And for me, photography is a big it it's highly connected to travel.
00:05:33.439 --> 00:06:00.879
Um and uh yeah, just started rediscovering the the the art and the the the fun of it and um but with with the new technology um and uh got going again and started coupling uh some of my work travel with some tack-on days of uh of some photography where I could.
00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:07.360
Uh so that that helped facilitate getting around the world because I was already there for something else anyway.
00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:15.920
Yeah, but therein lies the challenge because if there's really no more annoying person on the planet to go for a walk with than a photographer.
00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:20.720
You know, you take 10 steps and you're like, wait, hang on, everybody, I I gotta get this shot.
00:06:20.959 --> 00:06:38.240
Um when you go someplace for something else, how do you, I mean, other than tacking on time, but even then you feel rushed, how do you tack on psychological time, aesthetic time to really do wonderful landscape or architectural work when you're being pulled by somebody else's schedule?
00:06:38.560 --> 00:06:43.600
Yeah, well, I have separated it to a large extent from my family travel.
00:06:43.920 --> 00:06:52.480
Um, I'll bring a camera when I'm with the family, but I do put myself in a different mental place and kind of say that the camera's here.
00:06:52.639 --> 00:06:59.199
If I see something, I'll try to capture it, but this isn't driving you know the agenda.
00:06:59.839 --> 00:07:04.319
And with with the work adjacent photography, it's easier.
00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:13.279
I mean, I have a couple of days before or after a work trip, and they're just they I can just dedicate them to that.
00:07:14.079 --> 00:07:23.680
And um for me, I I would say a big part of the the photography is not just the thing itself, but it's a catalyst for me.
00:07:23.839 --> 00:07:32.560
I I love being out in nature, I love being out under the night sky, kind of love being in quiet places in the world.
00:07:32.800 --> 00:07:38.800
And in theory, I could do all of that without a camera, but in practice I wouldn't.
00:07:38.959 --> 00:07:42.079
Um, like you know, the photography gets me there.
00:07:42.399 --> 00:07:42.639
Yep.
00:07:42.720 --> 00:07:42.959
Yep.
00:07:43.040 --> 00:07:52.879
No, I I I you know, you you look at a mountain range, you look, you look at a forest, whatever, and the act of framing it, even if you never press the shutter release, the act of framing it is an act of focus.
00:07:52.959 --> 00:07:55.519
It's an act of um appreciation, basically.
00:07:55.600 --> 00:08:02.639
You know, not only is this in general beautiful, this is in specific beautiful uh for a particular moment.
00:08:03.360 --> 00:08:04.639
For sure, for sure.
00:08:04.800 --> 00:08:06.560
And it's and it's time, you know.
00:08:06.639 --> 00:08:14.560
I mean, the the times that I most enjoy are the, as probably most of us who do this stuff, you know, are are the quiet times.
00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:21.040
You know, it's it's sunrise, it's sunset, it's the it's the Milky Way and in a in a truly dark place.
00:08:21.519 --> 00:08:23.920
Would I be there without the camera?
00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:25.040
Probably not.
00:08:25.199 --> 00:08:33.759
I'd want to be, but you know, getting out of bed on a cold morning it's it's just nice to uh nice to have something that pulls me there.
00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:35.919
Yeah, and and something you can justify to others.
00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:37.679
It's I why you know why are you going out there?
00:08:37.759 --> 00:08:39.120
I want to feel more deeply.
00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:42.399
I mean that doesn't go real well at the break.
00:08:42.639 --> 00:08:44.159
You know, but you said no, I got to get some images.
00:08:44.399 --> 00:08:45.120
Okay, rock and roll.
00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:46.399
I I know what you're doing now.
00:08:46.559 --> 00:08:46.720
Yeah.
00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:54.240
I'm looking at your list of of galleries here: American West, Asia, Canada, Hawaii, Iceland, um, Ireland, Europe, Norway, Borneo.
00:08:54.399 --> 00:08:56.000
I mean, just you're you've been everywhere.
00:08:56.159 --> 00:09:00.720
Um if you if you had to point somebody to one of your galleries first, which one would it be?
00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:03.519
Well, I have some recency bias, I would say.
00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:04.799
Yeah, okay.
00:09:05.039 --> 00:09:11.440
Um so I kind of tilt to the uh and I I'm a I'm three or four galleries behind.
00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:16.480
Um so I nobody else is behind in posting, just so you know.
00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:20.639
There's not a single other photographer that that's late and wet setting up their website.
00:09:20.960 --> 00:09:21.279
Yeah.
00:09:21.440 --> 00:09:29.840
So um I, you know, I did a trip to Yellowstone in January and have some images from there that are not yet up that I'd like to get up there.
00:09:30.399 --> 00:09:41.600
But yeah, I mean some of the some of the Norway images uh were you know, were special to me just in terms of the creation of them, memory of that.
00:09:42.399 --> 00:09:49.919
So tell no, tell me the story of the very first shot on your Norway portfolio, which is that wave exploding around that rock with the bird sitting on it.
00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:50.960
Oh, yeah.
00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:54.399
God love you for getting this picture.
00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:55.279
I'm jealous as hell.
00:09:55.360 --> 00:09:57.759
But I mean, d tell me the story of this one.
00:09:58.320 --> 00:10:15.919
Well, so this was, you know, this trip was early February and uh several years ago now, um, and it was motivated by you know northern lights while we were in the Lafoten Islands, and for people who haven't been there, it's a lot of the shooting is on beaches.
00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:19.679
Uh most of the destinations are are beaches.
00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:23.919
They're quite beautiful in this sort of cold, rugged way.
00:10:24.879 --> 00:10:32.639
It's not as extremely cold as one might expect when you say, you know, Arctic Circle Norway in February.
00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:37.039
It's relatively mild, but it is extremely changeable.
00:10:37.600 --> 00:10:50.240
And, you know, we this was that shot was from the first day, and we kind of headed down to this this beach, and you know, it was the sun was out and it was kind of looked like a pleasant enough day.
00:10:50.399 --> 00:11:02.879
And within minutes, uh, you know, the sky turned dark and there was we were getting pelted with hail, and that turned to snow, and you know, the and just the wind off the water.
00:11:03.039 --> 00:11:04.240
It was extreme.
00:11:04.480 --> 00:11:10.799
And yeah, I mean, the getting the the wave hit with the bird, and you know, I mean, sometimes it's just luck.
00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:14.799
Uh but but you know, being there is half the challenge.
00:11:14.879 --> 00:11:15.840
So Oh yeah.
00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:16.480
Oh yeah.
00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:26.879
I I'm just chuckling because I I love those trips where you you get your killer shot on the very first day and and you sp and you spend the rest of the trip trying to you know get get back up to that bar.
00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:29.919
Um and and you have some uh shots.
00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:39.360
We we have to get to the to the l lawyering bit here in just a second, but you have some shots that I thought were from um the Great Dunes park in Colorado, but you said they're not.
00:11:39.440 --> 00:11:44.159
And you everybody you you gotta go to Davidstein.zenfolio.com and look at these.
00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:47.360
Those Dune shots, uh tell me the stories there.
00:11:47.840 --> 00:11:53.039
Well, that was that was a really fun, special kind of like work adjacent trip for me.
00:11:53.120 --> 00:11:55.919
That's um those were in White Sands National Monument.
00:11:56.799 --> 00:12:08.399
And although most national parks are open 24-7, that because it's adjacent to the uh the missile base there, has normally pretty restricted access.
00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:09.039
Right.
00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:19.440
But if if you're interested and you go there and you can plan ahead a little bit, you can can write in for an early entry or late stay permit.
00:12:20.240 --> 00:12:30.240
And there are also about, I don't know, maybe 10 or so campsites uh in the dunes that um are not reservable.
00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:36.639
They're on a first come, first serve basis, and you have to hike in over the dunes to get to them.
00:12:36.799 --> 00:12:39.440
So it's not it's not the easiest thing.
00:12:39.600 --> 00:12:39.759
Okay.
00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:46.960
But I had a I had been at a work conference in Dallas and thought, well, this is striking distance.
00:12:47.039 --> 00:12:59.279
So I I hopped a flight to El Paso and rented a car and drove out to Alamo, Gordo, New Mexico, and got you know these sort of permits to go in for sunset and sunrise.
00:12:59.600 --> 00:13:04.559
And it is it's really an amazing, you know, amazing place visually.
00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:07.600
But I I wanted to stay overnight there.
00:13:07.919 --> 00:13:21.519
So I I did my first night in town just at a at a local hotel and then got early entry the next morning, went in and did sunrise and then went to the visitor center before it opened.
00:13:21.600 --> 00:13:36.799
So I was kind of first, I was waiting at the door when they opened it, got my choice of the 10 campsites, and then I went to the local Walmart and bought a tent, a sleeping bag, a mattress pad, a you know, uh a master.
00:13:37.279 --> 00:13:38.559
Well prepared, okay.
00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:39.600
Yeah.
00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.399
And, you know, it was probably fifty bucks or so of camping gear.
00:13:44.559 --> 00:13:48.879
I just got the smallest, cheapest version of everything that you could get.
00:13:49.039 --> 00:13:51.840
Um certainly less than a hotel.
00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:55.440
And I I drove around and explored most of the rest of the day.
00:13:55.519 --> 00:14:02.080
And then as as it got to be late afternoon, I went back to the park and got myself settled um in there.
00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:06.000
But I I really had to just, I had my camera gear on my back.
00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:13.600
And so I basically just took all of the camping gear and wrapped it in a tarp and just carried it in front of me.
00:14:13.759 --> 00:14:27.600
It was it was it was a very awkward hike in, but made it and had a, you know, had a beautiful night uh with the Milky Way, and the sand there is is uh silica, so it it doesn't retain the heat.
00:14:27.919 --> 00:14:28.720
Oh, okay.
00:14:29.200 --> 00:14:40.000
And uh so you know, I just sort of lay out on the sand and it was nice and cool, just looking up at the stars and there's a lot of these images that are wonderful, but there there's two.
00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:48.720
There's one where the the dunes really fill the frame, but the mountain range behind them, which is mostly blue, um, you know, fills like the top sliver of of the frame.
00:14:48.879 --> 00:14:51.679
And it's j it it it's an elegant piece.
00:14:51.759 --> 00:14:53.919
Uh that's probably the technical term for this one.
00:14:54.080 --> 00:14:56.639
Um it is smooth, it is calming.
00:14:56.720 --> 00:15:01.519
Um, and I'm looking at it thinking that this is you know, one of the definitions of beautiful.
00:15:01.679 --> 00:15:07.039
Um, and then to sort of contrast it, then you've got the one with the fiery sunset on the you know, beyond the range as well.
00:15:07.679 --> 00:15:10.080
These are just stellar, stellar pieces.
00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:13.600
And you know, I'm not jealous at all of all the other trips, you know, Borneo.
00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:14.320
Come on.
00:15:14.559 --> 00:15:16.799
Um But okay.
00:15:17.039 --> 00:15:26.480
I mean, you and I then both we have terabytes of photographs sitting in the cloud, on a piece of hardware, on our desk or whatever.
00:15:26.720 --> 00:15:32.960
From the point of view of I mean, and what's going to happen with these when I'm gone?
00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:36.399
I mean, can I put electronic files in a will?
00:15:36.720 --> 00:15:38.000
What happens to copyright?
00:15:38.159 --> 00:15:42.240
What happens if they sell and somehow I'm dead, but the money starts coming in?
00:15:42.559 --> 00:15:56.879
From your point of view, what are the questions, you know, before we get to the answers, what are the questions that a photographer should be thinking about in terms of keeping the images somehow present in the universe after we're gone?
00:15:57.679 --> 00:16:00.559
Yeah, I mean, that's I guess that's the place to start.
00:16:00.799 --> 00:16:05.440
Um I think big picture there's a few categories of questions.
00:16:05.759 --> 00:16:15.200
One set of questions is not so much legal as it is organizational, and is just sort of figuring out what's there.
00:16:15.440 --> 00:16:25.039
And it's probably the thing any photographer is sort of you know most capable of doing themselves, though it's admittedly a huge job.
00:16:25.279 --> 00:16:25.440
Yeah.
00:16:25.759 --> 00:16:32.240
But nobody that besides you is better placed to be on top of documenting what exists.
00:16:32.720 --> 00:16:38.480
You know, do you mean in in a way, I mean, my Lightroom catalog is organized by date and nothing else.
00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:40.320
I I don't ever put in keywords and stuff.
00:16:40.559 --> 00:16:40.720
Yeah.
00:16:40.879 --> 00:16:42.639
But it's all there, organized by year.
00:16:42.799 --> 00:16:44.399
Do I need to do something more than that?
00:16:44.879 --> 00:16:54.639
Well, I what I'm talking about is not the organization of the collection itself uh as much as the organization of the information around it.
00:16:54.960 --> 00:16:59.759
Does anybody other than you know how to log into your Lightroom account?
00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:07.519
Does anybody other than you know how to find the the drive that has the Lightroom catalog on it?
00:17:07.839 --> 00:17:16.880
You know, for people who are have their work in uh with galleries or dealers, is there a list of what works or with which galleries and dealers?
00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:22.799
Are there are there written agreements that you know document what the deal is?
00:17:23.519 --> 00:17:27.279
How would anybody figure this out if you weren't here?
00:17:27.680 --> 00:17:40.079
Another thing, as I was thinking about what to talk about, I mean, a a a really interesting set of issues came up that was what about unfinished work?
00:17:41.359 --> 00:17:43.759
This I think is a fascinating topic.
00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:52.079
I mean, if you're let's say you're you're shooting film and you have undeveloped film in the camera, what what should happen with that?
00:17:52.240 --> 00:17:53.359
Does it get processed?
00:17:53.519 --> 00:17:54.559
Who processes it?
00:17:54.640 --> 00:18:04.000
You know, or if you have raw digital files that you haven't gotten around to editing yet, is somebody going to take responsibility to review those?
00:18:04.240 --> 00:18:07.119
Who decides which ones get edited and how?
00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:11.119
You know, because this is this is your legacy.
00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:17.039
So there's a whole set of questions that's around, as I say, first, first, what's there?
00:18:17.279 --> 00:18:22.960
And then second, you know, and maybe the second one's even more important in I would say in many cases.
00:18:23.279 --> 00:18:31.920
When you're not here and the and the work still is here, who's in charge of figuring out what to do with that?
00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:40.240
It may be a very different person from the person that you'd want to inherit the economic rights associated with your work.
00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:41.200
Okay.
00:18:41.279 --> 00:18:48.559
So so you you would you would have a curator or or an aesthetics person as well as a financial person?
00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:49.680
Potentially.
00:18:49.839 --> 00:19:01.200
I mean, I think, you know, like the typical estate plan, the typical will is going to just think about assets and property and say who gets what.
00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:04.799
You know, my kids divide it equally, right.
00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:06.160
Or what have you.
00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:11.039
That doesn't necessarily mean the kids have to be in charge of all the decisions.
00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:19.759
It just means that when when money or assets come out of your estate, they're the ones that are entitled to the the economic rights.
00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:34.880
And people would typically name somebody, an executor, a trustee, uh, you know, there's different legal roles, but who's responsible for managing the estate administration process.
00:19:35.440 --> 00:19:44.079
Typically that person is either a family member or a lawyer or or somebody with financial skills or a CPA.
00:19:44.720 --> 00:20:00.559
But you know, for an artist's estate, you know, we might see that maybe there are two trustees, two executors, and one of them is sort of has the responsibility of figuring out these artistic questions rather than figuring out who gets what.
00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:05.359
Is there you you just you just complicated the universe for me a second ago.
00:20:05.599 --> 00:20:15.839
Um is there sud- is there a difference legally in any way between a negative or a raw file and a finished print?
00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:17.920
Because I I think I keep forgetting who said this.
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:22.799
I think it was Ansel Adams, who talked about how many performances he could get out of a negative.
00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:30.240
So there were different interpretations that were sort of the finished product, but there was that immutable negative as well.
00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:37.039
We've all got raw files, you know, but depending on our mood and you know, our sun sign, we may interpret them differently.
00:20:37.279 --> 00:20:44.079
Is there a reason to think about the electronic files as potentials versus products?
00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:48.640
Um there certainly is artistically, for all the reasons you were just saying.
00:20:48.960 --> 00:21:03.519
And this is where where I was going with this idea that all of this stuff is your legacy when you're alive and you're making your own editorial decisions about which raw files to process, right?
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:18.799
How to process them, what emotional content you want them to convey, which ones might be imperfect in some technical way, but but are meaningful to you and you want to pro you know, how can anybody else make those decisions for you?
00:21:19.200 --> 00:21:26.240
Some people might say, I don't want anybody doing anything with my unprocessed images after I'm gone.
00:21:26.799 --> 00:21:28.799
You know, some artists have said that.
00:21:28.960 --> 00:21:38.319
Um others may, you know, find that they have uh somebody that they know and trust to, you know, to sort of do that for them.
00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:59.279
There was was, I think it was um Gary Winnegrand that left massive amounts of undeveloped film, unproofed roles, you know, contact sheets that hadn't gone further, and there were big issues about the sort of custodians of his estate.
00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:04.319
How do they figure out what to treat as part of his body of work.
00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:09.519
And how do you how do you develop, print, exhibit, and so forth.
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:21.039
So the I think those decisions are mostly curatorial type decisions, but they are things that you could one could dictate and control through a will.
00:22:21.519 --> 00:22:21.759
Okay.
00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:31.359
So so I can as a assign the the the rights to my photographs to a person separate from the more normally defined executor.
00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:32.240
Exactly.
00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:33.119
Exactly.
00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:33.839
Okay.
00:22:34.160 --> 00:22:36.480
What what now talk to me about rights.
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:45.920
If I'm gone, you know, am I do I need to have a line in the will that says the rights to my photographs that nobody's ever seen belong to my family?
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:49.119
Or is that just considered part of the property in general?
00:22:49.839 --> 00:23:01.599
In general, it's going to be if you don't say otherwise, um your property includes all of your property, whether that's you know physical property or intellectual property.
00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:02.240
Okay.
00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:06.319
But um it's always better to be clear.
00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:34.640
And you know I think but I think actually the biggest issues tend to come in because of things that happen during lifetime where people may make well-intentioned promises to say, oh you know, when I'm gone, I'm going to give this to the the museum or this per you know this person or this cause, but they never get around to legally documenting that pledge.
00:23:35.359 --> 00:23:45.680
Then they pass, their will just says it goes to their heirs, but somebody who's been promised the thing surfaces and says, well this was promised to me, but I have no evidence of it.
00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:50.799
You know what how do you and that that can be extremely awkward to say the least.
00:23:51.200 --> 00:23:52.319
I can imagine yeah.
00:23:52.640 --> 00:24:06.559
The I would say the average person that doesn't think about things like this all the time might expect that if they bought a photograph that they would have the right to reproduce that photograph.
00:24:06.799 --> 00:24:08.799
But you know that's not the case.
00:24:09.119 --> 00:24:15.920
You find not infrequently that people innocently violate intellectual property rights.
00:24:16.480 --> 00:24:18.799
They just don't even realize that they exist.
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:25.920
Aaron Ross Powell so as I understand it the minute I press the shutter release I I own the copyright to that picture.
00:24:26.240 --> 00:24:28.079
And I don't need to register it.
00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:32.240
I don't it just the fact that it's mine means it's mine.
00:24:33.440 --> 00:24:42.640
Is copyright transfer different than what we're talking about I mean you can obviously license your license rights to your images.
00:24:43.119 --> 00:24:51.359
You could fully transfer all of the rights to your images either during your lifetime or as part of your estate plan.
00:24:52.000 --> 00:25:05.440
The way typically like we learn about things like this in law school is that your intellectual property connected to a photograph is like a bundle of sticks and each stick is a right.
00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:12.000
But you can you can take a stick out of the bundle and give it to somebody and you keep the rest of the bundle.
00:25:12.319 --> 00:25:12.480
Right.
00:25:12.559 --> 00:25:17.200
Yeah okay yeah um so all of that can be done.
00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:35.759
But you know most typically what you'd expect is that there are you know prints are made um and sold during lifetime or posthumously and when somebody buys a print they really get no rights to the underlying intellectual property.
00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:46.000
They just have a piece of art that they are entitled to display and use for their own purposes but they don't they don't have any other rights to it.
00:25:46.480 --> 00:26:02.000
But our but our heirs have complete rights unless unless unless we specify so if they want to sell it to the ACME shoe company for their advertising campaign and I'm gone, that's completely up to them unless I've specified not to that's right.
00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:02.960
That's right.
00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:13.200
And you know and there are people there are um artists who establish trusts that are specifically for the purpose of managing these things.
00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:27.279
You know, there is an Ansel Adams Publishing rights trust that just handles all of the publishing rights to his work and they have, you know, things have happened um especially in the age of AI.
00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:42.960
There was a whole thing with AI generated images that had been that were on one of the stock photography sites that were being marketed as like Ansel Adams style and uh the you know the trust said well we don't we don't like that you're doing that.
00:26:43.519 --> 00:26:52.960
Using Ansel Adams name, you know, isn't something you have the right to do with your AI generated image and you shouldn't be able to do that.
00:26:53.039 --> 00:26:58.400
And and so you know in the end I think in that case the the images were taken down.
00:26:58.960 --> 00:27:01.920
How do you go about assigning value?
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:03.680
Or do is this even really a question?
00:27:03.839 --> 00:27:09.680
Because I'm thinking right now, you know I've got my you know huge collection of photographs that nobody's ever seen.
00:27:09.920 --> 00:27:13.039
They are by one definition completely worthless.
00:27:13.359 --> 00:27:20.319
But for all I know tomorrow the skies are going to open and one of them goes viral and suddenly it's worth$100 million.
00:27:20.799 --> 00:27:21.599
But that's tomorrow.
00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:30.000
So you know Ansel Adams if I discover a new negative it is both worth worth worthless and priceless at the same time.
00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:33.599
How do you go about assigning value?
00:27:34.319 --> 00:27:57.920
Well quick footnote because I also uh I was you know sort of looking for a couple of anecdotes that weren't from my own practice but um but it uh it was not that long ago there was uh someone bought a a bunch of glass negatives at a garage sale for$45 and said you know what I'm I think these are Ansel Adams negatives.
00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:15.839
You know these these must be worth a couple hundred million bucks or whatever and the there was a whole to-do about the uh the Ansel Adams' grandson said no that's you know they're not authentic et cetera and so there was this whole question of who decides whether they're even yours.
00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:28.319
You know, so so you can get into a lot of challenging questions, um, which is partly why I I led off with kind of documenting what's there to begin with can be, can be really important.
00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:32.319
Um for in the digital age it's a little bit easier.
00:28:32.559 --> 00:28:53.440
For a long time there were issues where you know people had had prints or negatives lying around and you know people who were avid about their own photography might also enjoy collecting other people's photography and there wasn't always a clear record of whether they were the photographer or there somebody else was the photographer.
00:28:53.599 --> 00:28:53.839
Yeah.
00:28:54.319 --> 00:28:55.759
Could be very complicated.
00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:04.480
But yeah I mean in terms of ascribing value to things there I think there's a little bit of a question of why we're asking the question.
00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:05.039
Right.
00:29:05.519 --> 00:29:09.519
In some cases there is an actual estate tax question.
00:29:10.319 --> 00:29:16.720
You know, but in the modern day and age we have very high estate tax exemptions.
00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:29.279
So essentially each person can leave assets to their heirs free of estate tax uh up to$15 million.
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:30.400
Okay.
00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:38.400
And so for a married couple that's thirty million dollars they could leave to their children, for example, without owing any tax.
00:29:38.720 --> 00:29:38.960
Okay.
00:29:39.279 --> 00:29:52.240
So you know most people don't have to think about estate taxes and I think I it's probably if anybody on the call is above those thresholds and wants to talk about estate taxes, I'm you know okay.
00:29:52.559 --> 00:30:02.559
Yeah but I'm but it's I think for efficiency of the agenda today w it's probably not relevant to most people to talk too much about the estate tax.
00:30:03.759 --> 00:30:23.039
So then the question is about you know division of an estate what one of the things about a collection of any sort um is it's often desirable to maintain the thing as a as a unitary whole and not fracture it.
00:30:23.359 --> 00:30:23.680
Okay.
00:30:24.880 --> 00:30:38.960
So if you have four kids, one could say, well look we're gonna just you know give everybody one quarter of the rights and all of your you know your everything in your collection.
00:30:39.759 --> 00:30:49.119
Somebody could say we're gonna go through some complicated process where people can can pick which ones they want and you know that would take forever.
00:30:49.359 --> 00:31:00.240
I would say the most common thing that happens with complicated assets is that they're sold in the market and the answer is that the market determines the value.
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:00.559
Okay.
00:31:01.200 --> 00:31:14.480
They're they're put they're they're sold at auction or what have you and and then the proceeds are almost by definition the fair market value um and the heirs split up the cash.
00:31:14.640 --> 00:31:20.880
That's not a very romantic or you know kind of loving feeling way to do it.
00:31:21.119 --> 00:31:30.240
But in practice um a lot of even the things that we're passionate about in our lifetimes, you know, our heirs don't necessarily want to have to deal with.
00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:32.160
Let's take just a quick break.
00:31:32.400 --> 00:31:35.039
We hope very much that you're enjoying today's episode.
00:31:35.279 --> 00:31:40.160
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00:31:40.240 --> 00:31:46.319
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00:32:02.160 --> 00:32:11.920
And now back to today's conversation is it possible um you know I've passed my kids have now they now own the rights for them to donate that.
00:32:12.079 --> 00:32:18.480
So like let's say to the college where I teach the college and they come up with an agreed upon valuation.
00:32:18.799 --> 00:32:33.519
They get the donation benefit the college gets a bunch of electronic files is that the way that would work that's mostly the way that would work um the value for purposes of the deduction would have to be determined by an independent appraisal.
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:40.720
So you'd have to get get an appraiser to come in sit down with 18 terabytes of undeveloped shirt.
00:32:40.799 --> 00:32:41.119
Great.
00:32:41.440 --> 00:33:00.160
Yeah and they you know I'm sure they wouldn't go through each image what you know they would make some assessment based on who you are and any any you know evidence during your lifetime of recognition etc and you know they'd they'd ascribe some some value to it which would you know probably be depressingly low.
00:33:00.240 --> 00:33:09.839
I I haven't seen your work but just the nature of the thing it's worth at least 1995 I want you to know the whole collection 1995 or a supreme pizza depending on which is less.
00:33:10.319 --> 00:33:11.680
But don't but don't order now.
00:33:11.920 --> 00:33:12.160
Okay.
00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:20.880
Yeah yeah there's more okay yeah uh yeah no so there's uh that that's how that would work though.
00:33:20.960 --> 00:33:33.039
I mean if if they just inherited your um your work um and one of the things they could do with it is donate it if they wanted to set up a trust they have to do you know make an LLC or something on their own?
00:33:33.519 --> 00:33:39.119
I mean you could do it during your lifetime um it could be done under the terms of your will.
00:33:39.440 --> 00:33:39.680
Okay.
00:33:40.079 --> 00:33:49.440
Um but but if it if you hadn't done anything and it just popped out the other side to them then then they could certainly do it after the fact.
00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:50.079
Okay.
00:33:50.400 --> 00:34:06.240
Well what are some of the other you know things we should be thinking about I mean right now I'm I'm also thinking and this is a mundane question every single because of my limited uh storage on my laptop every single image I've got is in the cloud and and you know do I know where it really is?
00:34:06.400 --> 00:34:07.519
No, it's just out there.
00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:15.840
Um do I need to download all that and put it on you know a drive that's physically sitting on my desk to say you know this is my collection?
00:34:16.079 --> 00:34:17.840
Uh no you don't have to do that.
00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:35.039
I but I do think going back to something I said earlier having some playbook or guidebook you know for people to to refer to if you're not here is you know including passwords and other access details.
00:34:35.280 --> 00:34:49.599
Sometimes I'll be just won't have accessed something of my own for a while and you know embarrassingly because I had been relying on my memory as to where you know like I don't even remember how to like what website I'm going to to find it.
00:34:49.760 --> 00:34:53.519
You know, sometimes and um I'm sure we all have these these things.
00:34:53.760 --> 00:35:33.360
So one thing we'll do with with clients very often and this is not you know specific to photographers or or even artists generally but pretty much all of our clients is I'll sort of encourage people to think about, you know, imagine the typical week or month in your life and like everything in your universe that happens in that week or month, all the decisions that get made all the actions get that get taken all the bills that get paid uh all the revenues that get collected et cetera and then take that picture and edit yourself out of it.
00:35:33.599 --> 00:36:43.519
You're a you're a distraction right so remove distraction um like now how does anything in that picture still function that's the situation that your heirs will be left with when you're not around and so kind of anticipating that and creating what I sometimes call the break glass memorandum you know like you've got the the little glass cabinet in the hallway that says case of emergency break glass but instead of having a fire axe behind it there's a there's a binder and it's got a bunch of stuff in it which would include all of this you know all of this kind of detail um not only where where is my stuff stored what's my user ID what's my password uh what credit card is the you know subscription fee attached to and and all those other details but also things like do I have existing licenses out there in the world if they if if they exist are they in writing if they are let's put a copy of the license agreement in the binder.
00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:54.239
And and there I forget the phrase that that our attorney used there's something about proximity to a will that if it's if it's not the will itself but it's with it, it carries legal weight.
00:36:55.119 --> 00:37:02.639
Well there there is um there is a phrase I'm not sure if this is what you're thinking but there is a term called incorporation by reference.
00:37:02.960 --> 00:37:13.679
I that sounds right but maybe yeah that you can sort of in your will you can refer to something that's outside your will if it as long as it's specific enough.
00:37:14.079 --> 00:37:27.440
So um you could say you know well I have a database and things that are in my that are tagged in my database with the following you know description should be treated this way.
00:37:27.679 --> 00:37:39.360
You know so that you're not trying to import into your will a catalog of you know 374000 photos that are meant to go into to the local school.
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:47.440
But if if I say in my will instructions for my photographs are in binder X and and Binder X is somewhere accessible, that counts.
00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:48.639
It counts.
00:37:48.880 --> 00:38:19.360
Usually the way we handle that is not to expect or even prefer necessarily that that makes Binder X a a binding no pun intended like set of in instructions that are legally enforceable by somebody but rather just that you're gonna empower people that you trust to you know do the right thing and then you're gonna give them the tools to do that.
00:38:19.679 --> 00:38:31.760
Because one of the one of the truisms of this stuff is that there's no way to anticipate the future state of affairs that people will be in when you're gone.
00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:32.400
Right.
00:38:32.639 --> 00:38:55.360
And if you make your estate plan, regardless what you know what the assets are, you make your estate plan too replete with black and white rules that have no interpretive element to them, things will break because there something about the there will be something that you didn't anticipate when you wrote the rule.
00:38:55.440 --> 00:38:55.760
Yeah.
00:38:55.920 --> 00:39:00.400
And it'd be like oh if I only knew that I wouldn't have said that rule.
00:39:00.639 --> 00:39:08.719
So we try to avoid writing too many rules and instead instead say these are the people who I trust to make the right decisions.
00:39:09.039 --> 00:39:16.480
And I'm gonna tell them we sometimes do another thing called a letter of wishes which is what it sounds like a movie.
00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:19.760
It's a it's a letter and it's got your wishes in it.
00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:20.239
Okay.
00:39:20.400 --> 00:39:22.960
But it but they're not expressed in legal terms.
00:39:23.119 --> 00:39:29.519
They're expressed in you know kind of philosophical or or sort of purpose oriented terms.
00:39:29.920 --> 00:39:30.960
I have never heard of this.
00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:33.760
So its purpose then would be what?
00:39:34.159 --> 00:39:43.679
Its purpose is to basically tell the people who have to make judgments about your estate what you're trying to accomplish qualitatively.
00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:57.599
So to take something that's more basic and not photography specific, when people have young kids and they're leaving money that's not, you know, the kids aren't ready to get the money yet.
00:39:57.760 --> 00:39:58.079
Yeah.
00:39:58.559 --> 00:40:00.960
Sometimes people will write a bunch of rules.
00:40:01.280 --> 00:40:06.400
Well when the you know when the kid turns 18 give them this much money.
00:40:06.559 --> 00:40:17.679
When they turn 25 give them a third of everything that's left and then when they you know turn 30 give them half of what's left and then when they turn 35 give them everything.
00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:26.320
That's a a very sort of risky thing to do in a way because I mean it's definitive you know when they're going to get the money.
00:40:26.400 --> 00:40:26.639
Right.
00:40:26.800 --> 00:40:37.920
But what you don't know is are they getting a big chunk of money while they're in the middle of a divorce or while they're in the middle of a bank okay you know while they're in rehab.
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:46.320
I mean there's sort of all kinds of things that could go on that would make you say, oh, I didn't really mean give them the money.
00:40:46.400 --> 00:40:46.559
Yeah.
00:40:46.800 --> 00:40:56.719
You know, what I I guess what I really meant was I want them to have the support that comes from that portion of the money existing.
00:40:57.039 --> 00:41:01.360
But I, you know, I I still want it to be protected from third parties.
00:41:01.519 --> 00:41:07.840
I don't want it to end up with an ex-spouse or a creditor or a drug dealer or what have you.
00:41:08.159 --> 00:41:44.320
Yep yep so um so we tend to in these letters of wishes say look I, you know, there's no specific age where I want you to give a specific dollar amount to to my heirs, my kids but I do want you to make sure that if one of my kids wants to be an artist and pursue their passion, that they get enough money out of this pool to allow them to keep the lights on and to feed their kids and to live in a safe neighborhood and give their kids good health care and education.
00:41:44.559 --> 00:41:44.800
Yeah.
00:41:45.039 --> 00:41:53.760
I don't want you to give them so much money that they can afford to never think about working a day in their life and you know buy yachts and airplanes.
00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:56.960
And I want to make sure they're productive members of society.
00:41:57.119 --> 00:42:05.679
And that could be because they're an artist it could be because they're a teacher could be because they're working for an NGO you know whatever it may be.
00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:12.239
And you know kind of putting down these concepts that like this is what I'm trying to accomplish.
00:42:12.400 --> 00:42:20.880
And uh then the people who are in charge of your estate after you're gone, legally they they're pretty much unrestricted.
00:42:21.119 --> 00:42:39.360
They can do anything but you trust them to follow your wishes and even though you you won't be able to predict exactly what that looks like my personal view is it's way more likely to quote unquote work than a system of definite rules.
00:42:40.320 --> 00:42:52.480
You know that I I'm listening to this and I'm remember remembering the movie Time Traveler's wife I'm just thinking Letter of Wishes is a Hollywood movie but you get to go forward and see if it's see if they're actually followed Yeah.
00:42:53.360 --> 00:42:59.119
David, okay coming back specifically to photography, what else should we be thinking about?
00:42:59.679 --> 00:43:07.599
Well we haven't talked I guess too much about uh well I've mentioned it in passing a couple of times, but you know revenue.
00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:08.320
Okay.
00:43:08.880 --> 00:43:13.760
And this is where the art and the finance kind of come together.
00:43:14.079 --> 00:43:14.400
Right.
00:43:14.800 --> 00:43:22.079
So um first of all people may may be aware but there you know we've we've talked about copyright.
00:43:22.400 --> 00:43:29.760
Copyright's not a forever thing typically will last under current law 70 years beyond your death.
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:31.679
But that's a long time.
00:43:31.920 --> 00:43:33.760
Yeah that's a long time.
00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:47.039
And um so you may have agreements in place already at the time of your death regarding licensing and royalties uh or other payments coming in.
00:43:47.440 --> 00:43:55.760
But then there's an and and then you'd have questions about who's entitled to those payments you might want to provide for that in a will.
00:43:56.320 --> 00:44:02.480
Um but then there's questions like who Can negotiate a new license.
00:44:02.800 --> 00:44:08.960
And if if there's if somebody violates the copyright, who's in charge of enforcing that?
00:44:09.840 --> 00:44:16.800
So th this is the reason to set up some kind of an independent trust or independent copyright management company.
00:44:17.199 --> 00:44:17.440
Yeah.
00:44:17.599 --> 00:44:33.679
And I think, you know, it's this may be obvious, but of course, you know, the more the more success you have during life, um, you know, in terms of your work attracting commercial value, the more important that would be.
00:44:34.559 --> 00:44:39.920
Um but there are famous photographers who died without a will.
00:44:40.239 --> 00:44:44.159
And you know, then decisions just fell to their heirs.
00:44:44.400 --> 00:44:47.760
So um Diane Arbos is a good example.
00:44:48.239 --> 00:44:56.800
You know, she didn't have a will, she died, her daughter took over the estate and kind of controlled everything about her work.
00:44:57.599 --> 00:45:00.880
And it's, you know, I think been reported.
00:45:00.960 --> 00:45:04.000
I'm I'm just talking about things that have been publicly reported here.
00:45:04.159 --> 00:45:04.320
Right.
00:45:04.800 --> 00:45:09.360
She controls it very tightly, which might be a good thing.
00:45:09.519 --> 00:45:11.280
Maybe it's what Diane would have wanted.
00:45:11.360 --> 00:45:12.000
We don't know.
00:45:12.159 --> 00:45:31.280
But um but, you know, in terms of having your work be out there in the world and allowing scholarship to be done around it, critical discussion, learning about it, you know, the if it's very, very tightly controlled, there may not that that opportunity may not be there to the same extent.
00:45:31.760 --> 00:45:40.159
So there are judgments to be made, and the default setting is wherever the ownership goes, that's where the control goes.
00:45:40.480 --> 00:45:50.960
So you'd have to really decide whether you want to separate the economic rights from the artistic judgment.
00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:58.000
It strikes me that this is really complicated to think about, but also really simple to solve.
00:45:58.320 --> 00:46:03.440
Just think about it in advance and and set up some kind of, hey kids, this is where everything is.
00:46:03.599 --> 00:46:06.480
Here's the passwords, and here's what I want you to do with it.
00:46:07.199 --> 00:46:12.320
It's not difficult to prepare, but it might be tremendously difficult to fix.
00:46:12.800 --> 00:46:14.320
I think that's very well said.
00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:19.840
I think, you know, kind of doing nothing is is doing a plan.
00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:21.760
I mean, a lot of people, right?
00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:28.159
So a lot of people say, oh, I, you know, I haven't done a will because I haven't, you know, thought of all the decisions.
00:46:28.400 --> 00:46:28.800
Right.
00:46:29.119 --> 00:46:31.199
But you do have a will.
00:46:31.519 --> 00:46:34.559
Like the state provides a will if you don't have one.
00:46:34.800 --> 00:46:42.239
It's not called a will, but by not doing one, you're effectively opting into the default setting.
00:46:42.480 --> 00:46:42.719
Right.
00:46:42.880 --> 00:46:46.239
And that's usually not the right answer for almost anybody.
00:46:46.400 --> 00:47:01.679
I mean, in the in the simplest of cases, I mean, sure, you know, if somebody's got a living spouse and no kids and whatever, you know, it's like, oh, I want 100% of everything to go to my spouse, like that that'll probably happen by default without a will.
00:47:02.079 --> 00:47:23.679
Oh, you know, I should mention, uh, speaking of spouses, just to throw one other point in there, there is a question for married folks about the ownership of the work that they create, especially during the marriage, as to whether they own it or they and their spouse together own it.
00:47:24.480 --> 00:47:30.719
And in the US, we have broadly speaking, two different um each each state has its own rules.
00:47:30.960 --> 00:47:31.440
Oh my.
00:47:31.599 --> 00:47:36.239
Um but some states they they broadly break into two categories.
00:47:36.480 --> 00:47:41.599
So some states have a system that's known as community property.
00:47:42.239 --> 00:48:01.119
And in community property states, broadly speaking, if people create value or you know, during the marriage through their personal efforts, that is considered to be owned by the community, meaning the the the spouses together as a joint asset.
00:48:01.360 --> 00:48:08.639
And unless you specifically kind of contract around that, that's that's the rule in a community property state.
00:48:09.199 --> 00:48:11.679
And and what's the what's the opposite or alternative?
00:48:12.239 --> 00:48:17.199
Yeah, I mean, in non-community states, it's a little more complicated.
00:48:17.599 --> 00:48:25.280
This there's a similar principle there in terms of determining what is separate property versus marital property.
00:48:25.440 --> 00:48:36.880
And there is a thematically similar thing that, you know, the if it's created in the during the marriage, there might be more of a a sort of presumption that it's marital property.
00:48:37.119 --> 00:48:42.960
But in those states, there are a lot of other factors that are brought into the analysis.
00:48:43.039 --> 00:48:55.519
And so people might look at things sort of broader in the totality of the marriage and what's what's fair in in a divorce setting, for example.
00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:58.159
Is there um an employer wrinkle to this?
00:48:58.320 --> 00:49:05.920
If I take a photograph on college time, but for my own artwork, you know, it's not like I'm working for a newspaper and and they are expecting delivery.
00:49:06.079 --> 00:49:10.559
But I I take an artistic shot on a college-funded trip.
00:49:11.119 --> 00:49:18.159
Um as long as it's not work for hire, which um is you know its own category of thing.
00:49:18.639 --> 00:49:20.880
That would be the journalism where I'm working for a newspaper.
00:49:21.039 --> 00:49:21.199
Yeah.
00:49:21.440 --> 00:49:21.679
Yeah.
00:49:21.760 --> 00:49:31.360
And and, you know, a a properly documented assignment would be explicit about whether it's work for hire or not work for hire.
00:49:31.679 --> 00:49:48.079
But I mean, you know, broadly speaking, work for hire, things that you are paid to do to produce for uh, you know, under a specific contractual arrangement, you know, the the resulting work would be owned by the by the payor.
00:49:48.480 --> 00:49:48.800
Yes.
00:49:49.039 --> 00:49:59.760
Um so you know, I mean, uh the school might say, uh, we we want photographs of our new science building that we can use in our promotional materials or whatever.
00:49:59.920 --> 00:50:08.400
You know, they they probably want to own all of the rights to those photographs, not just have a limited license from you as the photo owner.
00:50:08.880 --> 00:50:19.679
Even if somebody said, well, look, it, you know, if it doesn't say work for hire, then it's not work for hire, and the default is you own it, that that may be true in your state.
00:50:19.920 --> 00:50:28.960
I would still say it's smarter to have a piece of paper that acknowledges that it's yours.
00:50:29.039 --> 00:50:31.760
Aaron Powell Yeah, you you've mentioned differences between states.
00:50:31.840 --> 00:50:36.079
Do you happen to know are different countries wildly different in thinking about this?
00:50:36.719 --> 00:50:41.039
I think they're they do range, yeah, quite quite widely.
00:50:41.119 --> 00:50:53.760
And I will say there are, in my experience, there are, you know, large swaths of the world that really aren't all that into the idea of privately owned intellectual property.
00:50:54.159 --> 00:50:54.480
Okay.
00:50:54.719 --> 00:51:01.440
You know, and so you can imagine, you know, countries that have big industries of, you know, knockoff products and things like that.
00:51:01.599 --> 00:51:18.000
You know, they're not necessarily the the sort of mindset and culture and legal system aren't built around the notion that that we own ideas and own artistic creations and and that sort of thing.
00:51:18.239 --> 00:51:23.360
So the whole idea of intellectual property can be a little bit alien.
00:51:23.920 --> 00:51:27.920
And that can be extremely hard to police, because what are you going to do?
00:51:28.159 --> 00:51:32.559
Fly over, fly around the world trying to bring lawsuits in different countries.
00:51:32.719 --> 00:51:34.239
It's it's very difficult.
00:51:34.719 --> 00:51:35.440
Oh my.
00:51:36.159 --> 00:51:55.280
So I mean, basically, you know, if you are of age where uh a will is is not um in just in the back of your mind, it's best to do some thinking, perhaps talk with an attorney and say, okay, you know, let's get my letter of wishes or let's get that spelled out in the will in case something does happen.
00:51:55.440 --> 00:51:58.800
If you are younger than that, accidents may still happen.
00:51:59.039 --> 00:52:03.760
But this is this would be a good time for everybody to sort of say, what are the rules where I live?
00:52:03.920 --> 00:52:07.519
What are the rules that I just need to be aware of?
00:52:07.840 --> 00:52:10.559
Because preparation is a lot easier than fixing it.
00:52:11.119 --> 00:52:11.679
For sure.
00:52:11.920 --> 00:52:31.760
And I think the one thing I would say to anybody is like any big project, if you think about trying to create the perfect estate plan or the most complete estate plan, it's kind of overwhelming and is likely to be somewhat paralyzing.
00:52:32.400 --> 00:52:38.320
Um, on top of the fact that it's a kind of unpleasant topic to think about your own demise.
00:52:38.639 --> 00:52:49.920
So I am usually kind of encouraging people, instead of trying to create the perfect estate plan, is to just create a basically functional estate plan.
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:58.559
Like aim for 85% good and don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
00:52:58.800 --> 00:52:58.960
Okay.
00:52:59.280 --> 00:53:01.920
Um, which it can easily be so often.
00:53:02.079 --> 00:53:07.760
Um, because remember that like right now, your estate plan is probably terrible.
00:53:07.920 --> 00:53:20.000
You know, your your your no-will estate plan that is prescribed by default state law with no personal considerations in mind is a really, really bad plan.
00:53:20.159 --> 00:53:29.360
And to upgrade that from really, really bad to, you know, pretty decent, that step isn't that hard.
00:53:29.599 --> 00:53:29.920
Right.
00:53:30.159 --> 00:53:42.079
Um, and once you've done that, you know, you could catch your breath and take a trip and take some photos and do something else and you know, kind of come back to it over time.
00:53:42.320 --> 00:53:59.519
But in some ways, I would say also if you, you know, if you're talking to a lawyer or other advisor, for most advisors, they're gonna, you know, tend to be focused on the things that they know and do, which are for a lawyer, the the legal documents.
00:54:00.320 --> 00:54:13.360
But I think, you know, as hopefully it was evident from the discussion today, like a lot of the most important things in planning for this group are not really legal decisions.
00:54:13.760 --> 00:54:33.840
They're much more heavily about management of the stuff, documentation of agreements, and identification of people to be responsible for making decisions later, and then creating guidance for those people.
00:54:34.480 --> 00:54:37.599
That that is sound advice at every single level.
00:54:37.920 --> 00:54:40.159
Um, David, this is important stuff.
00:54:40.320 --> 00:54:41.920
I I've enjoyed our conversation.
00:54:42.079 --> 00:54:45.039
And to go back to Step, I'm still in awe of your photography.
00:54:45.199 --> 00:54:48.639
Um there's so much out there that is just beautiful.
00:54:48.960 --> 00:54:56.880
But I frankly, sitting with our attorney when I our wills started to come together and the idea of the photographs got into the back of my mind.
00:54:57.039 --> 00:55:00.719
I thought, oh, I haven't even imagined how to do this.
00:55:00.880 --> 00:55:03.679
So this has been uh helpful and insightful.
00:55:03.760 --> 00:55:04.239
And thank you.
00:55:04.400 --> 00:55:05.519
Thank you very much.
00:55:06.159 --> 00:55:06.880
My pleasure.
00:55:07.119 --> 00:55:07.599
My pleasure.
00:55:07.679 --> 00:55:09.360
It was really fun chatting with you.
00:55:09.519 --> 00:55:15.679
Um, I'm still blushing uh from earlier, but uh I'll try to recover.
00:55:16.239 --> 00:55:22.400
And um uh no, really enjoyed the chat, and uh I hope it was helpful to the audience.
00:55:22.960 --> 00:55:23.599
Frames.
00:55:24.079 --> 00:55:27.360
Because excellent photography belongs on paper.
00:55:27.519 --> 00:55:31.360
Visit us at www.readframes.com.
00:55:31.519 --> 00:55:33.920
That's readframes.com.
