Making Copies of On Ride Pics

Untrimmed quote removed. -J

YES! I do realise they'd need to sell more to make up the difference. Math was my best subject. The photos are not only $1 each really as the first time sale is $28 to start with (2GB flash drives are cheap BTW). With their best price being $20 we noticed my friend wasn't the only shocked and not buying the photo despite wanting to. As individuals we do have the freedom to make judgements and many of us refuse to allow us to be financially screwed so we don't buy, and that's our choice. It must be nice to be so rich that you don't care about the price being ethical. Yes, they would end up making more money buy making their prices logical. Then again Vader, like your Star Wars character he couldn't care less about right form wrong or if he thought people weren't treating nor charged fairly. Anyhow, in the end it's the park's loss as they are the one that failed to make a deal and got nothing. My friend has so many cute photos because of her photogenic child, so it's not like the park's photographers are magical professionals.

PS. The amount of photos they'd need to sell is not 20 being the first photo would cost $28. If say the person paid $28 for the first photo and didn't end up adding anymore during the year then they ending up with an even worse deal, but at least they'd have their image safely stored on a flash drive. The one time fee to have the image emailed I liked a lot and that'd save the park from all the equipment to print them ;)

CoasterGoddess said:

The photos are not only $1 each really as the first time sale is $28 to start with (2GB flash drives are cheap BTW). With their best price being $20 we noticed my friend wasn't the only shocked and not buying the photo despite wanting to.

It must be nice to be so rich that you don't care about the price being ethical.

If say the person paid $28 for the first photo and didn't end up adding anymore during the year then they ending up with an even worse deal...

So the answer to unethical pricing (your words, not mine) is to make the price even higher? Because people who won't buy at $20 are suddenly going to buy at $28.

And even if we pretend this is logical, the moment you buy the second photo for $1 the park is down $11 ($40 vs $29)

All you did was change the formula.

Now the park has to sell as many photos at $28 as they did at $20 and then after that they have to sell 12 times as many to that guest (at $1) to break even.

The park equipment already exists, so there'd be no savings. In fact, it'd technically be a loss to abandon perfectly good and useable equipment. Perhaps printing materials would be a slim savings, but the processing time/effort between hiting a few buttons to print a photo and hitting a few buttons to email a photo or put a photo on a flash drive would be the same.

Prices for photos at the the park are what they are for a reason - it works.

CoasterGoddess said:

It must be nice to be so rich

Speaking of abused words...

My wealth (or lack thereof) has nothing to do with the price of on-ride photos, and whether I find them ethical or not. I've always found them pricier than I'd prefer to pay, but the idea that the price is unethical or immoral has never even entered my mind. I've paid for a handful of them in the past when the novelty of having a still photograph of myself and whomever I was with on a roller coaster was new and fun. I no longer see the value in owning any more of these, so I typically take a glance at the monitor above the photo booth counter as I exit a ride, have a smile or laugh and go about my day. That has nothing to do with price; I'd likely do the same if they were a buck apiece.

Oh, and pay no attention to the buckets of money in my spare room over there...

The price of a Ferrari is unethical because I choose not to purchase one.

The same has been said about Fast Passes.

This has become the Godwin's Law of Coasterbuzz.

ApolloAndy said:

The price of a Ferrari is unethical because I choose not to purchase one.

And Andy sums up my point in one short sentence better than I did with a paragraph.

^^ Had to look that up; never heard of it before. Well done!

If one thinks about the cost of the pictures per picture, they're not THAT bad depending on the package. When there are special deals, you get up to four pictures for 20 dollars. That's five dollars a picture. Plus, usually you're getting keychains with this "deal". If you get digital pictures printed, it can sometimes be a dollar a print (depending on where you go). Sometimes even more if you go somewhere more professional than a Walmart or Target. Yes, it does cost more, but one could argue that the equipment that they need to pay for is more expensive (I don't know if it is), and of course at a park, you're gonna get a pretty steep upcharge.

I don't know that I agree that wanting to be able to print these pictures anywhere and anytime is the same as trying to do the same for an artist's wedding pictures or prints though. Exactly what art are we honestly talking about here? A machine took the picture with no consideration to lighting, background, etc., and the photo booth people just crop and print the pictures as directed. Apples to oranges I think.

I take this into consideration. You can't get the product anywhere else, any other time. You can't go to Target or Walmart and get a photo of you and your best friend riding Magnum at Cedar Point. That right there makes the photo worth more money t me.

However, I am over the whole coaster photo thing. Been there; done that. It's just not something I look forward to purchasing anymore. If there were more people with that perspective, the parks would know it, and would adjust their prices accordingly. I trust that the parks know how to best price their products. If it costs too much, people wouldn't buy it... yada yada yada... You all already know what I'm saying there. :)

Scan it into your computer, and print it out with a photo printer. Problem solved.

CoasterGoddess said:

Then again Vader, like your Star Wars character...

Hmmm Wonder if Vater received the appropriate release from the person who created the Vader character that he is using for his avatar???

On a related note, am I the only one who found it ironic that in one of the SeaWorld threads that Jeff pasted in a Price is Right clip? I assume the Price is Right creators are OK with having their creative work ripped off by anyone.

The problem I see is that it is so easy to "steal" images that people don't even realize that they are doing it.

Vater is not a Star Wars character and never has been...

I'm pretty sure you missed the joke, or that he was talking about his avatar, which is in fact a picture of a Star Wars character.

No I was talking about coastergoddess referencing Vater as Vader in like, every thread.

There is a thing called Fair Use as well. I'm no lawyer, but some of the things people are bringing up could be covered by that.

There are fairly well defined tests for what constitutes fair use, and most examples here wouldn't meet those criteria.

Lord Gonchar said:

CoasterGoddess said:

The photos are not only $1 each really as the first time sale is $28 to start with (2GB flash drives are cheap BTW).

So the answer to unethical pricing (your words, not mine) is to make the price even higher? Because people who won't buy at $20 are suddenly going to buy at $28.

And even if we pretend this is logical, the moment you buy the second photo for $1 the park is down $11 ($40 vs $29)

But in my case, to which this part of the discussion is referring to, I would have bought ZERO pictures that day or that season and used MY camera for the photos. Instead, I spent upwards of $40 for the photos, which the park had a [tangible physical cost of less than $4 for the flash drive. Yes, I understand the systems and staff cost money - but they are there whether I buy a pic or not.

Jeff said:

There are fairly well defined tests for what constitutes fair use, and most examples here wouldn't meet those criteria.

For a good laugh look at how many YouTube videos (incorrectly) claim Fair Use.

Also always chuckle when the description says, "No copyright infringement intended."

redman822 said:

But in my case, to which this part of the discussion is referring to, I would have bought ZERO pictures that day or that season and used MY camera for the photos. Instead, I spent upwards of $40 for the photos...

1. My retort was based as much on the 'unethical' thing as anything else. I was having a hard time understanding how raising the price on something deemed 'unethical' made sense.

2. Anecdotal evidence. While I'm sure they sell plenty of photos in this way (again, it's priced like this for a reason - it works for the park's needs), just because you dropped the cash doesn't mean everyone does or that more people do than under another pricing scheme.

3. This sort of falls under the old drink price thing that I never understood where people claimed that they would buy no drink at $5, but spend a total of $20 or more if the drink prices were something lower like $2 or $3. I feel the same way about this. I'm not suddenly inclined to suddenly spend more on park photos when the price goes down. Might just be me though, generally my park photo budget is $0. Been a long time since I bought a park photo.

Lord Gonchar said:

3. This sort of falls under the old drink price thing that I never understood where people claimed that they would buy no drink at $5, but spend a total of $20 or more if the drink prices were something lower like $2 or $3. I feel the same way about this. I'm not suddenly inclined to suddenly spend more on park photos when the price goes down. Might just be me though, generally my park photo budget is $0. Been a long time since I bought a park photo.

That is exactly the case - I wouldn't buy one picture at $20, but over a season, I saw a benefit (to me at least) in paying a cumulative average of $2 a photo.

CoasterGoddess said:
Then again Vader, like your Star Wars character he couldn't care less about right form wrong or if he thought people weren't treating nor charged fairly.

Nope, he's kind of a dick like that. But he does love a good teacup ride, so he can't be all bad.