Photographic Licensing explained

Photographic image licensing costs are also sometimes referred to as Creative Usage Fees, and are generally a reflection of the overall value photography work provides to the client.

Photographic licensing works along very similar lines to the music and film industries, artists, writers, and many other creative professionals. Even software programmers and inventors utilise licensing of their works. Wedding & portrait photographers also utilise a version of licensing, by retaining the digital files and making ongoing sales of prints and other products to the client, sometimes for many years into the future.

In Australia, the USA, and many other countries around the world, copyright is automatically held by the author of a work, whether photographic, artistic, literary, or other. This allows the author to charge for the usage of those works. See our page on copyright for more information.

For example, if an artist were commissioned by a gallery (or private client for that matter) to produce a painting, they would be able to hang that painting on their wall. Say, for instance the client then wanted to print postcards of the artwork, or print it in a book, they would still need to request permission from the artist and pay an additional licensing fee for the rights to reproduce the artwork. Similarly if a writer is approached to produce a film from one of his novels, a fee is paid to him for the exclusive rights to develop the story into a script, usually with a time limit after which an additional fee is paid, or the rights become open again for other film-makers to request.

Licensing costs are very small relative to the overall advertising or marketing expenditure, and are an important factor in ensuring that the photographic industry remains focused on quality and creativity. This allows photographers to produce great results for clients, whilst guaranteeing fair compensation for images that provide good ongoing value.

How licensing works

Licensing can be specific as to the conditions under which works can be used.

Sometimes a client will wish to purchase all the rights associated with a set of images. This is referred as a "License Buyout" which would includes usage rights for anywhere in the world, for any media, without time limit. As you can see, most businesses will never need such wide ranging rights. Due to the considerable cost of purchasing all rights, this option only tends to be taken up by large clients who have multinational interests across a wide range of advertising and marketing media, who will get suitable use from the images. A typical fee for full image buyout, of a full day shoot for example, can be upward of $15,000.

Another concern that often arises is about the cost of licenses negotiated at a later date. It is possible, at the time of the original commission, to negotiate licensing rates for particular usages. If specific future usage is not known, it is also possible to negotiate a Base Usage Rate or "BUR" against which future licensing can be determined according to standard figures set out by various profesisonal photographic associations around the world. BUR is set as a dollar amount, and particular usages are determined as a percentage of that rate.

A further alternative that is often taken are licensing "Packages". These packages wrap up a set of typical usages in one bundle, which is offered at a reduced rate.

Stock Images

Prices for much stock photography are determined in exactly the same way as shown above. When purchasing stock images using the above model, this is know as "Rights Managed", Some stock images are sold as "Royalty Free" which means the purchaser is able to use them for almost any purpose as much as they like, however the use is non-exclusive which means other businesses may be sold the same image to use for their marketing also.

When you commission a photographer however, you are getting the benefit of being able to plan and direct the shoot to acheive exactly the results you are after rather than relying upon an already existing set of images, as well as the additional flexibility gained from the range of images captured on a shoot.

Stock images are often cost effective and comparitive when there is only a requirement for 1 or 2 images, however beyond this it is often more cost effective to commission your own photography, even when including production charges.

Consideration should also be taken for the sometimes large number of hours that can be donated to finding appropriate images on stock photography websites, especially discount ones. This can be somewhat alleviated when utilising good quality stock agencies as they will often provide a service to narrow the search and provide results for your given criteria.

For further information on image licensing

The PLUS Organisation, or Picture Licensing Universal System, details a format for image licensing that is being taken up around the world. Visit The PLUS Coalition website for more information.

Additional Resources

Using an Experienced Photographer Why an Experienced Photographer is better	Copyright An outline of copyright with regard to photography
Our Photographic Services An outline of the services we can provide	Benefits of Quality Photography The benefits of quality images for your marketing
Uses for Photography A list to inspire your marketing ideas