Selling a copyright

<p>I had a client ask me to price out how much it would cost to buy a photo outright. The photo's copyright maintains with me, however, I do have another client who is leased the photo. I assume that I would not be able to sell the copyright, but rather it would need to be another leasing arrangement. Is this correct?<br>

Also, does anyone have any general guidance on pricing a photo to sell outright?</p>

<p>Answer is it depends...</p>

<p>If I understand the situation correctly - the image that client B wishes to "BUY" is currently under lease to Client A. </p>

<p>If that is the case then the it depends comes from the terms of your lease with Client A. If the lease states that it is non-exclusive - meaning you can sell or lease or give the image to others - then I'd suggest doing a lease with Client B instead of a "sale" of the copyright. The term of the lease would be 99 years or some outragous number and it would be a non-exclusive use agreement with you retaining copyright.</p>

<p>If they truly wish to "Buy" the photo / image and the copyright - then the lease with Client A would need to be transferred to Client B and you would have no further usage or ownership rights. Any lease renewal or renegotiation would be between Client A and Client B. </p>

<p>As for pricing - you need to set the bar fairly high - if the image is already under lease - how much income will you be giving up? That's a first step. Then you need to figure that if two clients like the image - how many other similar clients are there out there and how much would they be willing to pay for the image? </p>

<p>The price (for me at least) would also depend on what I shot the image for in the first place. If it was a grab shot - then I'd lower the price to under $1,000 - but not less than $250. If the image was a once in a lifetime shot - then $1,000 +.... but that's me.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

<p>My starting base price for anyone wanting to purchase all rights to a photo is $5k. On top of that many things are added and I haven't done a calculation yet that landed below $10k. I have no interest in selling all rights to my images and wouldn't do it no matter the price though. <br /><br />In 99.9 out of 100 cases where people want to buy "all rights" they have no clue what they're asking about and with a little bit of helpful explaining they often realize that they'd be just fine with specific usage rights at a far better price.<br /><br />In your case Katie, more details are needed for specific advice. Do the client asking for all rights understand what it is she's getting? What is she wanting to use the image for? By "leasing it" to someone else I'm assuming you have licensed usage rights to a different person. What is this usage/lease?</p>

<p>Thank you so much for the quick responses! <br>

Given what they described in their email, I'm assuming they would be fine with a lease (but stated they wanted to purchase outright). Their description was mainly for internal use but perhaps they would want to use it for external promotion as well. They are looking at multiple images. <br>

I'm thinking of offering them a lease with unlimited internal use (a price per image). Then I will offer that if they wish to do any external promotion with any images it would be an additional price. <br>

It seems like keeping the copyright and doing it this way makes the most sense. If they really push the issue, well, then I'll need to reconsider. Thanks again!</p>

<p>Katie:<br>

You can get a good idea of what various licenses (leases) go for by checking the pricing calculators at stock agencies. Alamy (http://www.alamy.com) and Getty (http://www.gettyimages.com) are both worth checking out. Obviously you want to check out Rights Managed pricing rather than RF.<br /><br />Note that the fees the calculators come up with is only to be used as a guide. In reality there are things like volume discounts, preferred vendor agreements etc that comes into play and have an impact on price. Best of luck with this.</p>

<p>Although you can indeed transfer your copyright to anyone, this is usually not the best way to go unless of course the money is so good you can't resist and see no other future value in the image/images.</p>

<p>I agree with Mikael, most people who ask for a copyright transfer do not fully understand the difference between a full transfer and limited rights; that latter which can be wide and deep yet allow you to maintain the copyright.</p>

<p>Negotiate only what they need and require, not what they want.<br>

Wants and needs are not the same from the buyers POV, so you need to explain/negotiate with them.</p>