http://www.diyphotography.net/stop-working-for-free-pat-popes-final-word-on-his-open-letter-to-garbage/
Garbage posted a response to the letter on their facebook page. You can follow the whole heated debacle here:
http://www.facebook.com/GarbageOfficial/posts/981221691888682
I took the time to post a reply on Garbage's response with my own thoughts and experiences, but the chances of you people actually seeing it are slim because of the way the commenting system works on Facebook. So.... I'm posting what I wrote here for all to see. Feel free to chime in on the comments section if you agree or disagree with me or the whole can of worms this topic brings up.
****************************************
Let me preface this by saying that I'm not a fan of Garbage, though I am a fan of Shirley. :) Loved Shirley in T:TSCC and I've got a thing for redheads too, but that's a whole other subject. :D
I'm neither going to demonize Garbage for asking for free photos nor demonize Pat Pope for posting a public open letter to their request. Garbage, along with their management company, are quite literally doing pretty much what everyone else is doing: asking for free stuff. Everybody loves free stuff... unless you're the one being asked to provide it. That's when you realize that free really isn't free; someone somewhere is footing the bill.
Those of you jumping all over Pat Pope; you missed the point of the open letter by about 200AU. If you stop now, think, and give it some time to sink in, maybe Voyager 1 will catch up to you in another 50 years. :P :D
Everybody likes to use the word "professional", but it's astounding just how many people don't have a grasp of what being a professional is. Being a professional is more than a way of doing business. It also means you value your own and others time and respect that they also are trying to make a living.
I for one am ecstatic that Pat chose to post his response publicly for a few reasons. For one, it brings to light a very real issue these days: professionals acting unprofessionally, then getting butt hurt when you call them out on it. Additionally it brings this whole subject into the limelight.
Part of the reason why it's become so commonplace is that it's become taboo to talk about it. I myself used to think that I must have an invisible "The Goodwill of Photography" sign on my back because of all the people hitting me up wanting either to use my work for free, or for me to take free photos of them. The whole "taboo" aspect of it is why these "professional" entities get away with it.
How many of you have already forgotten that the NFL was thinking about making artists pay to appear at the superbowl halftime show? Once word got out and made public they made a very quick turn-around on that though because of the backlash. If that hadn't been made public I guarantee that eventually that "business model" would have trickled down elsewhere.
I myself have pretty much heard it all by now from similar businesses though. Radio stations, liquor companies, local bands, book authors, people looking for free pics for their facebook profiles... the list goes on. The arguments are always the same in all cases:
-We don't have any money (but if you read their financial statements, they raked in 300 million the previous year. That happened to me and I'm not making that up whatsoever).
-I need to prove that you're the right person for the job.
-If you let us use your work/do work for us, others will hire you!
-So and so did it for us last year. Why don't you do it too?
-We used to use (insert name here). They were a bunch of assholes. We like you though!
... and in some cases:
-You should be paying us to take photos of us!
The list goes on and on and I could take up my whole day today going into detail with it all, but I've got better things to do.
It isn't just artists this happens to as well. I also do computer work and no word of a lie, a local company that I was helping out (and was working for next to nothing as it was) started playing games and making it sound like they were doing ME the favor by letting me work for them. I quickly kicked their asses to the curb for that.
Like it or not Pat is 10000000% correct in his statements, especially about the abuse of power. If you won't do it for free they'll just find someone else to do it. In the process you'll be blacklisted because you didn't give in. That's happened to me in every instance where either I've politely declined to work pro bono or I've told them to go shit in their hat.
In closing; they say there's no harm in asking. When the entity doing the asking isn't really asking, but DEMANDING that you give in to them (and if you don't there's reprocussions levied against you), then there's real harm being done. Last time I checked, the technical term for that is extortion...
