Pricing & Negotiating: Publicity Licensing for TV Network

Concept: Licensing existing images of a television show cast to a TV network

Licensing: Publicity use of five images for two years

Photographer: Portrait specialist based in California

Client: Prominent cable television network

Here is the licensing agreement:

At the beginning of 2011, the photographer was commissioned by a regional magazine to capture individual seamless portraits and a group shot of four actresses staring in a cable TV comedy. The group shot ultimately landed on the cover of the issue. Since the shoot, the show gained traction and is set to film its 100th episode. Now looking to promote the success of the show, the network contacted the photographer about using some of his images.

The network originally asked the photographer to compile a quote for 5 images to be used for 2 years, but since they didn’t specify an exact use, I reached out to our contact at their public relations department to discuss the details. She clarified that they wanted the ability to send the photos out whenever an article was being written about the show by a third party.

Just as featured in the commissioning publication, the network requested a total of 5 images (one individual portrait of each actress and one group shot). After looking at other images on the network’s website, it seemed likely that they’d get more use out of the group shot, and I therefore figured it was more valuable. Also driving the fee up was the major celebrity status of one of the actresses and the increasing popularity of the show, which would likely boost the exposure of the images. However, putting downward pressure on the fee was the fact that the images were already a few years old, and that other similar images already existed on the network’s website.

Typically, I’ll start with calculating a one-year price when compiling a quote, and then extrapolate to determine the value of additional years. In this case, I determined that the group shot was worth $750, and the individual portraits were worth $500 each for the first year ($2,750 total). As a very loose rule of thumb, I’ll often add 50% when doubling the licensing duration. So, in this case, that brought me to $4,125. However, based on previous experience, I felt that breaking the $4,000 mark would be a bit too high, so I scaled it back down to $3,750.

I checked my pricing against a few resources, and found that Getty doesn’t list a specific “publicity” option, but they do have “newsletter, press collateral and event programs” as a licensing option. For two years, they priced one image at $680, but it was based on image size and circulation, which is information that was unavailable to us. Corbis did have a “press release” category, and suggested a range between $500 and $900 for a single image for two years. BlinkBid has a “public relations” option in their pricing calculator that suggests $350-$500, but the only option was for regional use as opposed to national. Lastly, Fotoquote suggested a price around $600 for use in up to 10,000 press releases. All of the above suggestions reinforced that I was in the right ballpark with my quote.

When we discussed the fee with our contact, she mentioned that they were hoping to work within a budget of $2,500. Since that was around the number I was considering when initially compiling a fee for one-year, we decided to supply the network with the following quote that met their budget, but limited the licensing duration to a single year:

Results: The network agreed to the one-year option. However, rather than signing our estimate/terms, they preferred for us to sign a contract they supplied. Based on my experience working with other TV networks, I was surprised (and happy to see) that their contract didn’t detail a work-made-for-hire agreement or transfer of copyright. Here is the original version of their contract:

After taking a closer look, there were a few items I wanted to clarify and revise:

• The language they used in the “permitted usage of licensed material” clause didn’t match up with our quote or our definition of “Publicity”, so I crossed out their language and clarified the licensing.
• In the “licensing fee” section, I made sure to note that additional fees may apply to acquire model releases if necessary, and that this would be the responsibility of the network.
• In section 3, I added a few lines detailing that the client similarly indemnifies the photographer.
• In section 4, I crossed out the line stating that payment would be withheld if they decided to not use the images. I didn’t want the photographer to have to follow up to confirm their use (or lack thereof) of his images. Both parties should either mutually agree on the licensing and payment to use the images, or not. Their language left it open ended, so I struck it out.
• Section 6 essentially stated that the licensing would include third party rights, which wasn’t something we agreed on. We wanted the TV network to be the only party with the ability to use the images for the purposes outlined. They’d be supplying the images to third parties for publicity purposes, but the language used in this clause was too broad, so we struck it out.

I made the above edits and sent back this revised version:

They agreed to our changes and sent back a clean version integrating our revisions, which the photographer then signed and returned.

Comments: As I mentioned, it’s often the case that TV networks ask photographers to sign work-made-for-hire agreements. While that didn’t apply here, it would make for an interesting situation if this project were for a different network that did present a WMFH agreement. Can a stock sale be considered a work-made- for-hire? Well, such an agreement would mean that the client would have owned the copyright to the image as soon as the picture was created. In this instance, since the image was previously licensed to the magazine that originally commissioned the work, then a WMFH agreement between the photographer and the TV network would be illogical. The licensing would instead need to be along the lines of “exclusive unlimited use in perpetuity” or a transfer of copyright. There are subtle differences between a work-made-for-hire, transfer of copyright, and exclusive unlimited use in perpetuity, and it’s important to recognize when each term is appropriate to use.

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