Charlie

Meet Charlie.  He is only twelve months old but he takes his playing, and photographs, very seriously...

Copyrights. 'Cause I said I would.

I once read that the first Ford Pinto (that's a car from the 70's for you young people) cost over $1 million to make.  It was a one-of-a-kind prototype.  From that car the tools were made to make LOTS of Ford Pintos and the rest is history.  Oh right... for the young people:  The Pinto was popular during the 70s' gas shortage because it was cheap to buy and got good gas mileage.  It also blew up if you ran in to the back of it.  That's how come ya' don't seem 'em drivin' around anymore.  I don't know how many they MADE but they RECALLED 1.4 million of 'em.

Aaaaanyway.  The point is that the ORIGINAL cost the designers and manufacturers a lot of time, money and expertise to make. From that effort they were able to make sell duplicates of the original and, presumbably, make enough money to cover the cost of the original AND make a profit.

If you would have offered the Ford Motor Company $1 million in 1971 for their one-example Pinto I don't think they would have sold it to you.  Probably not for $2 million either.  Ten million dollars? Perhaps.  For it was from that original that they were able to sell you and a few million others the COPY for a much more attractive $2,100.

Since most are clever enough to see where this is going I'll just get to my point:

Photo copyrights are full ownership of the original photo or digital image file.  When a photographer takes a photograph he IS the owner of the original photo....the prototype.... and he has copy "rights" to that photo or digital file.  The photographer can adjust, alter, print, copy and sell (with some stipulation) that photo any way he chooses.

I am sometimes asked to sell... or provide... my digital files to a craigspix.com client. Under the right circumstances (i.e. the right amount of money) I do it.  I haven't sold a craigspix copyright yet but have been asked to on a few occasions.  No one has yet agreed to the $5,000-per-file price.