Question about the cost of buying rights to a photo for a website

Does anyone know what someone would charge to 'buy the exclusive rights to a photo for use on a website'?

This is a photo posted on deviantart. When posted, the picture is then copyrighted and not to be used by anyone unless given permission. The fact that whoever it is that wants to buy the rights asked permission is fairly telling, I think.

 

Hi Laura

Good question and as a rule of thumb and I only remember this from days at Kodak, is that the person who holds the copyright to the photograph as 3 options if they want.

1. Offer it royalty free
2. Set a nominal price for nay users to use this, just like the image banks do.
3. Sell the rights outright and in this case the price can be whatever you deem the cost of the photograph is worth, take into concideration, the cost involved with producting the image, like media, the time taken to take the photograph and any image processing time to get it just right. But this price can be what you feel its honestly worth.

 

Okay...what would you deem 'Exclusive Rights' to mean? They are asking the person, but just curious. They are willing to pay for exclusive rights to the 'electronic version' for use as a website display. As far as I know, it doesn't sound like it would be for the sale or distribution of the image. There would be no processing costs.

So how would one go about determining what their price would be based on that?

 

I see where you can purchase their photos, but not where I would find out info like this.

 

Thanks sikvik

At a glance it looks like an interesting forum. I joined and will pose the question. Are you a member there?

What forum would this question go in?

 

Exculsive Rights, is that no-one else would have the right to use a said photograph for any reason at all, just the copyright owner, if the photo was sold to a new person who wanted exclusive rights, then the seller has to give over the original and any copies of the photo (or delete any spare copies from any digital media) to the buyer, in some instances the buyer will ask the seller to sign a rights document which would state something like.

"I the undersigned do sign over all rights and copyright of xxxxx image/s to the buyer and that xxxxx image/s are not used in any other context, be that advertising, website etc etc"

The buyer once they have full rights to an image, they can then do what they wish with it, as you may know many celebrities sign contracts for exclusive photos to a magazine of newpaper for a sum of money, they the said mag or paper can then at a later date do what they wish with those photographs, in selling non-exclusive rights to other media outlets etc

This enables somoeone who bought a photo, to potentially with that photo if it was something that could be in demand, a hell of alot more cash than they paid for it.


For a price, TBH their is no set figure, its the sellers choice, but I will give you an example of some images (they where computer drawing/art) that I had produced, that a customer of a place I worked at liked when he saw them, he asked if he could have exclusive rights to them for use on a fruit machine in a casino he was tasked to fit out with some items, on that basis and knowning the lenght of time it took me to design them, I set a figure of £25 per image, was 12 of them... but this was back in 1990s

I would say is the website popular, or could it be in the future?
Did the image take long to get and is it a favorite of the photographers?

If say yet to the two then maybe a price of £100 - £200 or equiv dollars, or if its just one of a series of others maybe £50 - £100.

 

Right. Okay. this was the response:

From sikvik's site, I found this: http://johnharrington.com/dc-photographer/pricing/corporate-web-photography/

It looks like the placement determines price.

To answer your question, this is one of the person's best photographs.

I gave him the sites for pricing. It also looks like most give 1 year usage rights.

 

Hi Laura


Ok, cool the responce is what I thought it would be in exclusive rights and as I mentioned no-one else can use the image at all.

The site in question has a very low website traffic ranking of hits etc 2.9 millionth+ in thw world, take that with the likes of Majorgeeks and its traffic rank is 2.695 the in the world. Alexa is oen I check on for data like this.

Cannot open your link sadly, can you give the name of the photo?
(did look in the main gallery and great photos btw)


But as you say this is one of the photographers favs so will add a premium to the price as he will not be able to ever use this image again, and if does for personal use or gives away or sells it on to others can be taken to court for copyright breach.

I couldnt be able and I dont think anyone can give the photographer a price to place this at for his work, they have to do this themselves, I can also say in paint and pencil artwork I have sold an A2 size picture for what would be near $500 in your money, that was for a corporate and used in an office or hallway iirc.

As this site has a low hit rating, I maybe inclined to say see if a price around $200+ would be acceptable (this is a guesstimate as its not my image), BUT and have the photographer say that this is on the condition that he can on his own website advertise the site the image is used on or in a portfolio of commisioned or sold works, a sort of record of the sites and mediums that their photos have been used in.. and artists Resume if you wish.

 

K. Thanks D. That's some good info! I'll pass it on to him. He's a very good photographer. I edited the link out since I hadn't asked hi onout posting it. LOL

 

Thought I was going mad, when I just looked again


Art is just one of those subjective media formats that its down to the individual what they like and what they would pay or sell artwork for, I wish him well.

Hey just a quick question, is this his fulltime job or just a hobby, have they sold other images? its worth a thought and setup a personal site as some folk do make a good living or add extra cash ontop of a perminent other job with web-art/images etc which is why I mentioned holding the right to use the image as it looks on the website once sold for a portfolio.

I keep photos of images I have done for proof and portfolio as a matter of course, and have full permissions of the buyer, as I add a sticker on the back to tell me who has what. Not that I do these things now, have designed a few logos for companies over the past year or so.

 

Thanks again, Dave. I passed on your info. Good stuff.

 

You are welcome Laura, I hope some of it helps as I have been through the same scenario before. Just difficult to price artwork TBH.

If you can link me to the artist in PM or email, would love to see their work, plus let us know how they get on as I'm interested in this, sparked an old work thing! as you know I'm way out of the phto stuff now an well in part in imaging but now medical-ish!