Columbia Journalism Review - Exposure to Risk: Freelance photographers are organizing against a new contract at the Wall Street Journal that they say opens their work up to AI training.
"For the Journal photographers I spoke with, this is not enough assurance. 'The whole trade-off when I got into this business is: if you're going to be freelance, you're going to own your work outright,' Brian Frank, a California-based photographer, told me. Frank has worked for the Journal regularly since 2008, more or less since the introduction of photography to the paper, and has routinely licensed images from his Journal work for three to five thousand dollars. 'Now they want to own the work and we don’t get job security,' he said. 'It’s complete insanity.' "
Petapixel - Freelance Photographers Balk at New Wall Street Journal Contract
"The Wall Street Journal says it is keeping pace with technology and protecting its photography archive. But hundreds of freelancers — anxious about intellectual property ownership — object to the Journal’s new contract and are withholding their services.
'It is perhaps the most unified and the most angry I have ever seen the photojournalism community, and may be a bellwether for the visual-media industry,' says freelancer Daniella Zalcman in an article with her byline published July 8 by Columbia Journalism Review."
Arizona Public Media - Arizona freelance photographers reject new Wall Street Journal contract
"Araiza said the work-for-hire model is not typical or fair for news publications to offer. The New York Times, for instance, operates on a joint copyright agreement with freelancers which deems the photographer as the creator and owner of the media.
Araiza said so far this year, he’s lost about half the amount he made with the WSJ in 2025 due to turning assignments down.
'That is a substantial financial hit,' he said. 'But I think if me and other freelancers don't take some sort of stand, it's just going to be a domino effect with other publications thinking it's okay.'"
Excerpt of statement from Women Photograph
"We are an organization with over 1,600 members based around the world—hundreds of whom have worked for The Wall Street Journal in the past. This new contract puts our members in an impossible position: they have to decide between giving up opportunities to earn money in a rapidly constricting industry or giving up their copyright. Sole copyright ownership not only gives photographers control over their own work and how it can be used in the future, but also allows them to earn additional income on their work later by licensing. We have heard from many of those members over the last few months as they struggle with this choice, and we sympathize with them as they try to decide what’s best for each of them and how their choices impact our community.
We are calling on The Wall Street Journal to negotiate a contract that is fair and upholds widespread industry standards. Opening the door for AI models to train on our intellectual property is a threat to writers, artists, and visual journalists everywhere, and we condemn its normalization. Forcing photographers to sign a contract that denies them their full copyright—and their ability to earn future income from their own work—is a predatory practice that must not become an industry standard."
"These issues are important and these photographer's voices should be heard. Works made for hire (WMFH) agreements target the only provision in U.S. copyright law that strips the ownership of the images created from the photographer—this should be a last resort, not an opening gambit. And when the alternative to signing is to simply not be hired, there is no negotiation at all, just an top-down edict. WMFH is a truly binary option — either I own the intellectual property (the copyrights) or I don't. That is a threshold matter. And it is from that point that all the other rights, including the right to offer back a 'joint copyright,' stem.
The 'balance and bargain' that freelancers have relied upon is upended with an agreement like this. In exchange for the lack of steady work, the lack of security, the lack of benefits, the lack of employee protections… at the very least the offset for that was that the freelancer owned their copyrights. Here not only do they have no protections for all of the above, they also do not have the single most important assets any creator can have, their copyrights. The disrespect towards photographers and the devaluing of their work and craft is deafening."
Excerpt of statement from the National Press Photographers Association
"For decades, freelance photojournalists have pushed back on publishers' desire to own copyrights through work-for-hire contracts, but the potential for 'training' in artificial intelligence is raising new concerns as work for hire affects authorship, control, and the future integrity of visual journalism. This has been highlighted by a recent contract offered to photographers by the company that publishes the Wall Street Journal.
Freelance 'work made "for hire,' or 'work for hire' contracts create a legal status where a company is considered the author of the photos and video. 'When a photographer or videographer is an employee, the law says that their employer is considered the author and thus the owner of the copyright. But when they are a freelancer, the default is that the freelancer owns the copyright' Alicia Calzada, NPPA Deputy General Counsel explained. 'A work-for-hire freelance contract gives a client the benefit of treating the freelancer as an employee without paying the benefits of employment, such as health insurance.'"