Earlier today, someone requested a quote for a few pictures to be used on their clothing store’s web site. So I sent a quote for a few pictures to be used on their web site. The person replied that it was “silly” that the quoted price didn’t include all rights, for all the pictures taken, for all eternity.
Photographers are running a business. The purpose of every business is to make money. Photographers make money either by selling pictures or licensing pictures.
Many photographers would be happy to sell all rights to their pictures. But the price would range from thousands of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars and maybe even much higher. Really.
All rights include such things as: resale rights, sublicensing rights, worldwide TV rights, worldwide movie rights, worldwide advertising rights in all media, worldwide publishing rights in all media, editorial rights for all newspapers, magazines and web sites in the world, etc.
If a customer really needs all those rights then a photographer would be happy to sell all those rights at an appropriate price. This price would have to cover all the possible uses.
But rarely, if ever, would any customer need all these uses. Not often could a customer afford the high price.
So instead of charging many thousands of dollars for all rights, a photographer charges only for what the customer actually needs.
If a customer wants more, they pay more. If they want less, they pay less. This is exactly how every other business in the world operates.
Licensing picture use is the best option for both the photographer’s business and the customer’s business. The customer saves money because they pay only for what they use and the photographer gets fairly compensated for what they produce.
Licensing is the world standard for intellectual property.
Why would anyone expect photographers to give away their source of income (photo licensing) for free? It would simply be bad for business.
