This Photography License is Non-Transferable

The importance of including ‘This photography license is non-transferable’ in your license paperwork:

Occasionally I will meet a marketing person or potential client, who demands the right to allow property owners, contractors and other entities unrestricted use of our images without additional fees. Some have expressed their right to resell a photographer’s images to recover their firm’s cost from an assignment or worse, make a profit without paying the photographer or artist from the images that we create and own under the 1976 Copyright Act. A reverse image search from several sources has also been a primary source of unlicensed usage discovery.

They may have been influenced in the past by image creators who allow unlimited and unrestricted usage to any third-party firms such as contractors, vendors or manufacturers who want them as part of a package, and this is a dangerous trend.

Your Photography License Protects Your Work, and the Industry

There are some photographers who have been shooting for years and didn’t care about the long-term issues or the loss of potential revenue, not to mention the potential damage they are causing to our industry. These photographers are giving away potential income and are potentially losing future revenue that they could have made from licensing their images to additional clients.

If you have not already done so, it would be in your best interest to add the “non-transferable clause to third party requestors” or “this photography license is non-transferable” into your contracts. That offers further protection to your intellectual property.  It also will give you a stronger potential for future income. You will need to monitor and enforce that issue, but clients will pay attention, and you have the potential for making a better profit from your work.

Photography License Resources

If you are a member of ASMP, www.asmp.org, you can explore the member’s resource section. By using that information available, you can move your career forward with a better understanding of how to create stronger terms and conditions, licensing, copyright registration and beyond.

Your estimate, contract and your terms and conditions need to be firm and well defined. Illustrate what the client is receiving. You also need to illustrate the limits of your license, along with your terms and the period of use. The information that you can download from that site will surprise you and is well worth the time invested.

(Note from Cradoc fotoSoftware – fotoQuote and fotoBiz also provide licensing resources and tools)

License Your Photography and Protect Your Work!

Occasionally, a third party might gain access to one of our images, either by a client passing one or more images on without our permission or by other means. That non-transferable to third party clause in your terms helps but registering you image with the U.S. Copyright Office is the best possible protection. The certificate of copyright registration that you receive after registering your images, offers a deeper level of protection and helps to settle infringement cases and can make a big difference in a positive outcome and settlement.

The key to making a better living in our profession is controlling the licensing of our images, copyright registration and protecting our future as professional photographers.

Empower yourself!

(Note from Cradoc fotoSoftware: Please see our article on the importance of tracking your photography license.)

About Steve Whittaker 

Steve Whittaker is an architectural, interior, and aerial photographer serving clients across the West Coast and beyond. His work spans civic, commercial, healthcare, hospitality, and residential spaces, with features in Architectural Digest, Forbes, Time, and Architectural Record.

Steve is past President and a current board member of the ASMP Oregon Chapter, a chapter board volunteer offering outreach educational programs and served two terms as an ASMP National Director and Chapter Liaison. In addition, and he served two terms as past President of the ASMP Northern California Chapter. 

In 2005, Steve discovered the value of copyright registration after discovering multiple images where his images that were not licensed to those firms and resolved those issues receiving payment in each case.

Over the years, the value of copyright registration, dealing with copyright infringers and the discovery of infringed images through reverse images searches became part of his process.

The goal is to turn infringers into paying clients without having to deal with attorneys when possible and it paid off. In many cases, several previous infringers have returned to license additional images. This process is covered in one of Steve’s seminars.

Since 2008, Steve has offered multiple seminars to both ASMP and PPA chapters throughout the country and to students in various digital / photographic academic departments in the Portland Metro area. The seminars focus on the business aspects of commercial photography.

Website: https://www.whittpho.com/