Image Licensing for Event Photographers
What license should you use when selling your images?
Contents
Introduction
Do you ever consider what image license should be granted to a customer when they buy your photo from an event? Let’s find out!
Customers purchasing event images are usually very different to customers who buy stock images. For stock images you typically hope to re-sell the same image multiple times (unless someone purchases an exclusive use license which is priced accordingly). The license will impose certain restrictions such as that it can only be used as part of a larger work, that it can only be reproduced so many times such as on merchandise, and that it can’t be re-sold or included as a raw image in any template or other package. These are all commercial uses of the image and the photographer quite rightly wants to maximize their potential revenue.
Event photography is quite different. While there can be some commercial use aspect such as a breeder using the photo of a prize-winning bull for sales and marketing, the majority of buyers are either the subjects of the images or close friends or family members. There will likely be little 3rd party interest so if the photo isn’t sold to them, it isn’t sold at all. For example, the 4H kid that won a ribbon, likely only their parents or grandparents will buy that image. Same for sport races, the participant in an orienteering race will buy their own image, they don’t want the image of a random person they don’t know.
So the type of customer is very different and they are buying images for different reasons. Do they know about the intricacies of image licensing? Probably not. They want to post their image on social media, share it with their friends, have prints made to hang on the wall and, yes, sometimes for sales and marketing and other promotional use.
For these types of sales, adding multiple licensing options increases the complexity of the buying decision. What license do they need exactly? What will happen if they buy the wrong one or don’t comply with all the terms and conditions? Studies have shown that overloading customers with extra choices that require too much effort to understand can produce anxiety about completing a purchase and ultimately put them off purchasing. And remember - with event photography you often only have one potential customer per image so if they don’t buy it, the opportunity is lost forever.
This is why it’s good to consider a permissive license where the customer gets the right to use the photos as they want. This frees them from the confusing choices and fear of picking the wrong option. The image copyright isn’t transferred, so if the image does happen to have potential value as a stock image then you (or whoever paid you to take it) as the image owner can still resell it to others.
Don’t let licensing stress you out as a photographer, start selling and see what happens at events! If people other than your expected customers buy your images you might have a whole other business opportunity. Until then keep things simple for your customers and make sales.
