Good morning,

Our reproduction fees are $5 per image for scanning - to a disk, by
email, or to a print.  If someone wishes to have a photographic copy
made, we can't do that in-house - we choose the vendor, and charge a $5
fee above cost to cover our time (we transport the images back and
forth, we don't let the customer take them).  And "we" are a small
historical society in rural western NY with a small staff, if that helps
with context.

We've had several messages about fees that were too high and discouraged
use.  Can you supply numbers and circumstances - how high was "too high"
and what were the images?  Dollar amounts and details would help those
writing or revising photo fees.  I've been struggling with use fees and
haven't come to a definitive conclusion.  I do believe museums and
repositories need to charge "appropriate" fees for use and publication.
 In these days of easy graphic reproduction (or piracy, depending how
you feel), we don't know what will happen to our photographs once
someone gets them.  It would be great if we received a small fee from
everyone who used a collections image on a web site, postcard, T-shirt,
coffee mug, book, advertisement, etc.  It would be fair to everyone and
would support the institutions caring for the photographs.  But this
usually isn't the case, and museums/ libraries feel the need to collect
larger fees upfront.

I also wonder if users are chafing at the idea of being charged for
photos at all.  Does the public expect that everything will be preserved
forever and made totally accessible for free?  The easy answer is
"there's no such thing as a free lunch"; the realistic answer is that
users need to be educated about why we charge use fees and museums/
libraries need set fees that are appropriate, not punitive.  Feedback
anyone?

John

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