How long should you save image files after they’ve been delivered to the customer?
A photographer should inform customers about their photo archiving policy. How long will you keep the photos? Can a customer depend on you, for years to come, to redeliver the photos? If you promise to archive photos but you lose them, can a customer sue you?
For example, a company is producing a marketing brochure but it loses the images and asks the photographer to resend them. But the photographer deleted their copies of the images after delivery to the customer. The company cancels its marketing project and threatens to sue the photographer. (This happened in 2006 to a photographer I know and he ended up reshooting everything for free.)
For myself, having to resend photos has been rare, maybe seven or eight times in the past 20 years. But to minimize your liability, I think it’s best for a photographer not to promise any photo archiving. Tell the customer that it’s their responsibility to safely store the images. For example, in your photo contract:
Photographer may choose to archive the image(s), but it is the Customer’s responsibility to properly store and archive the image(s) for the duration of the term of licence. Photographer cannot guarantee the availability of any image beyond the date of first delivery to the Customer.
And in your delivery memo:
Hello Jane Doe,
The download link for all 25 photos: www.fancy-foto-delivery.com/your-photos
Please download and make backups of all the photos because the download link expires in five days. After this time, I cannot guarantee the availability of any image.
It is very important that you make backup copies.
Obviously you should archive your images and resend photos if a customer asks. Note that some photographers charge a fee to resend images, especially to corporate customers. Resending images requires time and effort and it pulls you away from other work. If you have a redelivery fee, it should be disclosed in your contract and again in your delivery memo.
A recent corporate customer this week asked me to resend pictures that they lost one week after delivery. The estimate, the invoice, and the delivery memo, all clearly stated that they needed to make backup copies of the pictures. Yet they still didn’t do it. Sigh.
I resent the photos (for free) and they promised to make backup copies this time.
