Published by Connected Archives, connected-archives.com
We have become aware that Cosmopolitan Germany is requiring photographers to sign contributor contracts containing open-ended AI usage clauses as a non-negotiable condition of assignment. We want to address this directly, and on the record.
Connected Archives represents established photographers whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Die Zeit, and publications of comparable standing. These photographers built their careers on a simple premise: their images belong to them, and every use is licensed explicitly, individually, and fairly. That premise is not a negotiating position. It is the foundation of rights-managed photography.
Asking photographers to sign away rights to uses that cannot yet be defined is not a reasonable contract term. It is an open-ended rights grab. No professional in any creative field should sign a contract whose scope the counterparty cannot or will not specify. Presenting such a clause as standard and non-negotiable does not make it legitimate. It makes the power dynamic explicit.
The economic harm is real. Generative AI systems trained on photography do not simply reference images. They replicate style, compositional logic, and visual identity. A model trained on a photographer's archive can produce work that competes directly with that photographer in the same market, with no additional payment, no credit, and no recourse. A one-time editorial fee does not account for this, and cannot.
The legal standard cuts the other way. Under the EU Copyright Directive, rights must be granted, not assumed. The burden falls on the party seeking to expand use, not on the creator refusing to surrender it. AI training is a use. It carries commercial value, as the technology industry's appetite for training data makes abundantly clear. That use requires an explicit, separately negotiated license with the photographer's informed consent.
None of the photographers represented by Connected Archives will sign a contract containing an open-ended AI training clause.
Connected Archives
Vienna, Austria