I received a call from a fellow who wants to use 4-5 images of mine ( @ $25.- each) to be printed on his T-Shirts.
He will attend the same show as I am trying to sell my prints.
How would YOU react to this proposal. please.
Newbie,
Annette
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I am a landscape oil painter and usually work from life or my own photos. However, I will occassionally come across an image that is stunning. If it is something of which I might wish to use, I contact the photographer and request a license to use the photo as a reference for my painting. Usually, I purchase that license for a fee ranging as low as $35 to $250. Often, the photographer requests that I give them back a print if I make prints of the painting, or he might ask for 5% when I sell, or 15% of each print I sell, etc. Sometimes, I will even have a photographer who says, "yes, go ahead" and asks for no payment of any kind. Regardless, I ALWAYS get something in writing!!! On the back of my painting, I will usually post the photographer's name and say something like "thanks to **** for sharing his photographs on which this painting was based." Down the road in a couple of hundred years, I would want the photographer remembered as well as the artist.
Larry has good advice! A number of times in the past, poster companies have asked me if I will let them use one or more of my images for their poster catalog. Every company had about the same deal: I get 25 cents per poster if they do all of the printing, etc.; $2.50 per poster if I do all of the printing, etc.
However, there was no real copyright protection, because in the last few years, the courts have found for the publishing companies over the copy rights of the artists. In other words, without a well-written contract, you lose all rights to whatever image they purchased from you.
That being said: I have limited edition photography. It isn't expensive, but I would feel really embarrassed if a client who had bought one of my pieces for, say, hundreds of dollars, only to see the same "image" for sale for $25 in a poster shop.
Dears: Karla, Larry, Patricia, Diane, Joanne and Jim.
THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH for all Your considerate thoughts helping me out, as I am just now getting over my goosebumps I had all day. Your Input was a tremendous relieve to me., though I still do not know what liscense pictures or contracts are.
As I am pushing in my senior years, being a newbie, yet young enough to climb barb-wire fences in No Trespassing zones, to photograph a wild herd of Donkeys in the backcountry of the still very "Wild West" of the Rockies. in Cripple Creek, Colorado.
Before the turn of the century these donkeys were used to haul the Gold out of their mines, then when electricity was interduced 1920-30, the donkeys were useless, therefore were set free to roam ~ which they still do to this day.
Although Cripple Creek still is a major gold mining operation, the village is dead. Tourist come for gambling and enjoy the donkeys ( if they are around)~ which have the right of way.
There has not been a picture of them until I spent many days and afternoons finding them together interacting. They are most lovable, social and funny, gentle creatures!
So this fellow with the T-Shirts now has my website, as everybody in town Loves my pictures! The BIG event which brings thousands of people to Cripple Creek, are the " Donkey Derby Days". I am not sure what they have planned for those poor animals, but I hear they make them 'RACE'.
As I am including a couple of silly images, as they 'bray' it reminds me of the people's mentalities around where I live, in Very rural country.
I am looking forward to my first big show this Saturday, May 7th, being the 18th "Hummingbird Festival". My new Ez-Up wind distroyed ~ 'superb-quality' replacement panels are on the way from Hut-Shop, the sun will shine to 75 F and there will be no ill winds.
Again my New Mentors, I THANK YOU ALL for Your advise and input.
With my very best regards,
Annette
Joanne, I am practicing out loud *~*!
PICT4615 =herd.JPG
651 Jack Pot.JPG
I'm a photographer and I've been licensing my photographs since the early 1970's for plush (stuffed animals), posters, puzzles, calendars and greeting cards. In all cases both myself and the company I was dealing with both signed a contract listing specific usage of the images.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
Hello Dear Larry,
Thank You for taking such a vast degree of intrests in the Art Forum Fair Insiders, helping others with Your wisdom and great knowledge, sharing continuously !!!
I humbly appreciate the fact of correcting my misspelled vocabularies, grammar and commas, as I have been born and educated in Europe ~ learning English, because Elvis lyrics I needed to translate ( I never did find 'hounddog' in Websters however, but that was in the 50th).
Larry, where would I find Licensing contracts please, ???
Years ago, A rep from Hallmark wanted to buy an image of mine for $500.- to obtain the copyright, though poor as a churchmouse ` my instint said no!
I am including the pic ~ of 1 exposure ~ when I got terrible lost backpacking.
Thank You, Larry.
Annette
img029 MOOSE HeartLake, WY Aug. 1979.jpg
Usually if the company interested in your work is legitimate, they already have a contract that their lawyers have drawn up. Make sure to read it carefully before signing.
bad contract example
I backed out of a deal with a famous basketball player because he had signed with a company to promote him and they wanted to use my photographs. I was to get 5% of what he was to get. After I signed the contract and submitted it, they sent back a second contract that said 5% of the 5% I was to initially get. I refused to sign and they sent me back all my images.
bad contract example
About ten years ago, I was contacted by a company that wanted to do downloadable greeting cards and they were going to pay me $5000 to use my teddy bear pictures. But I wanted to cross out the paragraph in the contract that said that my images would become assets of the company because they were looking to use me to get picked up by Microsoft. I told them were to get off and they sent me back my DVD of images.
good contract example
A few years ago, the ad agency for Mount Sinai Hospital used one of my New York pictures for a full page ad in the New York Times. The initial licensing fee was based on the size, distribution and one time use and I was paid about $2500 and each additional time the ad ran, an additional $500. All in all, I made over $6,000 on the deal.
There is a program out there called FotoQuote where you enter all the variables and it gives you a range to negotiate. I reviewed it a few years ago:
http://www.bermangraphics.com/press/stockphotography.htm
An artist friend of mine is currently in a licensing deal to decorate a chain of hotels. As soon as the deal is completed, she provides the artwork and gets paid, I'm going to do an interview with her. She hired an intellectually property attorney to read over the contract the company provided.
So what does an artist do when another artist wants to use their images, each not understanding the ramifications of what's happening. It sounds like it's not going to be lucrative for either and probably not worth the effort. But at least the artist asked, unlike a thread on this web site where one artist used another artists work without permission, or threads where an artwork concept was copied and reproduced. Or the people from China that photograph artwork in your booth and reproduce it illegally. There was even an artist who sold a painting and the person who bought it was on the show committee and reproduced it to advertise an art show the artists wasn't at the following year. Heck, one year a painter purchased one of my photographs and had a painting of it hanging in his booth at the same show I was at (familiar story but in reverse?). I immediately asked him to remove the painting and he never hung it again.
Examples of licensing contracts. Like I said, legitimate companies provide them. But you can check the ASMP or Illustrators web sites. Not sure if you have to be a member though.
http://asmp.org/
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
I would reply "As flattered as I am that you wish to use my images for your T-shirts, I must say no. The right to enjoy my art hanging on your wall cannot be extrapolated to a license to use my image for any other purpose. This might infringe upon my livelihood. However, I applaud your honesty, appreciate that you asked and wish that others would follow your suit as to honoring copyrighted artistic material."
Leave it at that, smile kindly, then change the subject!
very diplomatic
My thoughts are no!!! If you want your images on T shirts then do that yourself and sell them outright. You are "giving" him his art work for peanuts. You have no real control after you hand over your images. You have no idea how many he may sell, where he may be selling them, how they are presented, etc.. If he is selling T shirts at a show, should the art work on them not be his? Just my thoughts
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