GTC

General Terms

Preamble

When it comes to providing news and advertising agencies with images, those images have to move fast! Valuable photographic material has to be made available as rapidly as possible and without any bureaucratic obstacles. Usage can be complicated, issues of liability play an ever greater role, and great care has to be taken regarding copyright and personal and property rights. It is not usually possible to agree on a contract before images are ordered, which means that the following General Terms apply to the way we supply all our images. Invoices are due for payment without deduction immediately upon receipt.

General Terms

Only the GTC of laif apply. Contrary GTC of the customer are not applicable, even if laif does not expressly oppose them. If the customer does not agree that these GTC apply to the contractual relationship, it shall promptly delete already delivered imagery from all data media.   Eine vorherige gesonderte Vereinbarung mit laif ist ebenfalls erforderlich, sofern Bilddateien mit dem Vermerk “Sonderkonditionen“, “Special Fee”, “Special Rate”, “Special Price”, “Clearance” oder “Approval” (im Folgenden SONDERKONDITIONEN) gekennzeichnet sind.
For access to the image database, the customer, after registering, will receive a user ID and a password (access data) from laif. The customer is obliged to keep its access data secret and to protect it from improper use by unauthorised third parties. The customer is obliged to inform laif promptly if it is suspected that an unauthorised third party has acquired knowledge of the access data. laif is entitled in such a case to immediately change the access data.
All stored and/or ordered and delivered material remains the property of laif at all times. It is made available temporarily for the sole purpose of gaining usage rights and must be deleted within a certain stated period or returned if the material has been delivered. In the case of analogue material, postponements can be negotiated.
Photographic material may only be shown to a third party for the sole purpose of selecting and viewing. The storage/delivery of image material is not an automatic right to publication. The borrower is held liable for entrusted material until its undamaged return within in the negotiated period of time. The borrower must also cover the costs and bare the risks attached to the appropriate return of the pictures.
The approved publication of pictures of people and/or legally protected works and/or objects represented on the borrowed pictures is not part of this contract. The user is responsible for obtaining consent as well as artists’ rights, property releases, model releases and trademarks from the authorities in question. Please also consult us before publishing anything in a commercial context. The release for commercial or electioneering purposes – unless otherwise explicitly stated in the caption – must be expressly agreed in writing. If personal rights are affected in any case of commercial use, the user is responsible for obtaining the consent. In such cases it is imperative for you to consult us.
The user of photographic material is permitted to upload the material, reproductions or adaptations of the material, in a composing/layout to data releasing social media platforms such as Facebook, youtube etc., if it is guaranteed that:
– the copyright notice (photographer)/laif or the laif watermark is included in the image in any usage of the image.
– the file size of the image used does not exceed a width of 1200 pixels.
The social media use of graphic material that is marked with the note “use in social media not allowed” shall be excluded. In principle, the use of images of persons as profile picture or as graphic representative of a real person in the virtual world shall be also excluded.
The images/texts may not be used in such a way that distorts the image’s context. The user bears responsibility for changes made to any texts supplied. He is obliged to abide by the German Press Code drawn up by the Deutscher Presserat (German Press Council). laif is not liable, either directly or indirectly, for any damages or claims that may arise in connection with the publication of any images/manuscripts supplied.
laif Agentur für Photos & Reportagen GmbH expressly reserves the right to use its content for commercial text and data mining within the meaning of Section 44b UrhG. For the acquisition of a corresponding licence of use, please contact mail@laif.de. We hereby expressly reserve the right, in respect of all works on this website, to the automated analysis of any single or multiple digital or digitised works for the purpose of obtaining information, in particular, about patterns, trends and correlations.

Fees

Any kind of usage of our photographic material entails fees which consist of a net price in euro plus the compulsory value-added tax. The amount is established according to the way and to what extent our material is used. These details must be determined in advance. Our fees are based on the going rates recommended by the ‘Mittelstandsgemeinschaft Foto-Marketing’.
Exclusive rights and/or embargos on images require a special agreement with laif and entail a special fee that has to be agreed each time with laif.
Unregistered and therefore illegal usage can be fined with a surcharge of up to 500%
In case of assignments, the commission fee is no more than a minimum price which functions as a guarantee. Any printed lay-out on a larger scale (title-page, whole page or several pages) must be priced according to the usual rates per page or title. If a fee was previously agreed upon as an assignment or purchase guarantee, it must be paid four weeks after delivery of the pictures, series, colour photographs, manuscripts.
By accepting the delivery, the purchaser has acquired the right to a one-time publication (basic right of usage) in the edition of the publication previously named by the purchaser, providing that nothing to the contrary was agreed upon in writing. Subsequent publications in any special or licensed editions of the publication anywhere must be arranged specifically. If no use is made of this right within three months by publishing (pictures/series/colour photographs/manuscripts) it will elapse. This means that the author is free to make use of this right in whatever way he chooses, unless anything to the contrary was agreed upon in writing.

Copyright Notice & Author’s Copy

Any kind of usage is not only defined by previously settled agreements but also by the laws of copyright. Any publication (print and online) must include the following copyright notice: “name/pseudonym of author” and the additional reference “/laif”. Furthermore, at least two royalty free author’s copies (including reference to place of publication of each picture) per “published author” must be forwarded to laif. (This does not apply to films and television. Exceptions can be negotiated in case of commercial usage.).
A surcharge of 100% will be added to the fee in question if references to sources/authorities are omitted.

Costs & Charges

Storing photographic data from laif’s database entails costs. We charge 8 € for high resolution photo data.
For the accounting of the images used the customer delivers the following information to laif: publication, image size, publication date and laif image number. We charge a fee of 10.00 € for each laif image number which has not been notified.
Costs for processing orders are defined according to the nature and the amount of work involved. For analogue material, there is an additional all-inclusive charge for postage and packaging. Delivery costs are covered by the customer.
laif is entitled to charge the customer for contributions to be made to the artists’ social insurance fund for the photographer.

Further Issues

Any subsidiary rights remain reserved. Deliveries to other countries are also negotiated according to German law. laif’s place of jurisdiction is Cologne, Germany.