How To License

A Stock Photo

Terms

By Andrew Hudson

I haven't written this yet. Some things to write about include:

How you license a stock photo is up to you: it's your photo so you get to decide what terms and price you'll accept. Of course, the client has some ideas too so there'll probably be some negotiating. And if you're licensing to a big company or agency, they'll have set terms and pricing that you either agree to or walk away from.

The main point of licensing terms is to fully describe and limit the project, so that both parties know what they can and cannot do. You don't necessarily have to include any terms -- your legal copyright protections still apply. But, for ongoing business, it's always good to establish -- up front and in writing -- your understanding of the arrangement.

Most of my stock sales are small affairs and I just include a line on the invoice, such as:

Non-exclusive license to use (describe image) for (describe limited usage) only.

For example:

License fee: $200

Non-exclusive license to use one photograph of Balboa Park on Web site and one marketing brochure with a print run of no more than 10,000 copies only. Any other use requires written authorization.

Non-Exclusive

This is the most important term. It says that the client can use the image but not exclusively, i.e. you're still free to license the image to other clients too.

Being able to sell and re-sell the same image is key to profitable stock photography, so you want to establish your continued right to do so. For most clients, this is not a problem. Once in a while however -- particularly in advertising -- the client may need exclusive use. They may want a limited exclusive, to prevent competitors in their market from using the image, or, more likely, a full exclusive, so that the same image never appears elsewhere. For this, of course, you can charge them. Since you're saying goodbye to future revenue, you could triple the usual fee.

Only

I like to include the term "only" at the end, to limit the licensing to the project described. Sometimes, a client will come up with another project later on and want to use the same image -- you want to get paid more money for that. In the example above, the wording "...only. Any other use requires written authorization" alerts the client that the fee is just for this one project.

I once licensed some images for a brochure and, several years later while watching TV, I saw my photos used in a TV commercial. I was able to point to the "only" clause in the old invoice and demand additional payment.