George Zimbel is a photographer who has already stamped his mark on the history of photography both through his own pictures – you can see his work on his web site – and also through his association with Garry Winogrand, which I’ve written about on several occasions, most recently here on >Re:PHOTO. When he was a student at Columbia, and already working as a freelance for PIX Inc and on other assignments, he teamed up with Winogrand in the “Midnight to Dawn” club making use of the university Camera Club darkroom.
Zimbel took on the NYT and won over an important question of photographer’s rights, the ownership of press prints supplied to newspapers. When in 2000 he saw one of his prints on sale through the NYT for $4,000 US, he was surprised, as he knew they did not own any of his work, as he had always worked for them as a freelance, selling only single reproduction rights.
He wrote to the paper, and while at first their legal team stated it was their property, after a while they agreed to return it, while still claiming it was their property. He had supplied the print to the paper in 1960 for reproduction and they had failed to return it.
Even though they eventually returned this print, the counsel for The New York Times Company still claimed it was their property. I’m unclear on what legal basis that opinion was based, and it seems to me – as it did to Zimbel – to be a shameful and mean-spirited misuse of legal muscle to deprive freelances of their rights. You can read the full correspondence on his site.
Thanks to one of my favourite photographers, Ami Vitale, for posting about this on Facebook – and she got the story from Paul Melcher who has played an important role in technology for image licensing and other hi-tech aspects of photography on line.