Rights-managed contracts

Over the last few months I've been getting numerous requests for image licensing. Is there some sort of template I can use in drawing up licence agreements?

We've ended up ginning together our own from a variety of templates, but in fact have to adjust it for each client. Our starting point is the book The Law [In Plain English] for Photographers by Leonard D. DuBoff, 208Pp., Allworth Press, 1995. ISBN 1-880559-19-6. Subtext for the title is "Complete Coverage of Copyright, Contracts, Defamation, Censorship, Agents, Taxes, Estate Planning, Privacy and Releases." There could well be a more current edition, but our well-thumbed copy has served us well. My wife develops the contracts and has modified the one she selected from the book using several online sources, but I don't know what those sources are at the moment. Most of our contracts are for use with images generated in contracted shoots, for which we get paid an hourly shooting fee in addition to the fees for licensing. I'm sure there would be modification of terms as well as use rates for strictly stock photos.

Hope this helps Kah Kit. Be prepared to negotiate contract terms after the client sees your first version, but that merely helps communication and understanding between you and the client. And having a variety of contracts will be really useful to you in making those adjustments.

Edit: I just learned that she also uses info and forms from PPA (Professional Photographers of America), but those may be member-only services. EP (Editorial Photographers) is also useful.

You might want to check out Blink Bid for http://blinkbid.com/.

It allows you to create a template for contracts with added rights declarations. I was playing with it for awhile but the price compared to the amount of business I was doing just didn't seem to make sense (currently) for me. It was fairly flexible and, once past the initial learning curve, could be very useful for standarizing your contracts.

Kah Kit,

for Australia, you can have a look at Arts Law:
http://www.artslaw.com.au/

Or if you were a member of AIPP, they have sample contracts:
http://www.aipp.com.au

HTH and let us know what you find.

cheers,

André

I, unfortunately, have never had much need for it, but I purchased a DVD of forms by Tad Crawford, "Business and Legal Forms for Photographers". It contains just about every form you should need, including licensing in both PDF and Word format. You could Google his name and purchase them on-line. He was well recomended in other threads a while back.

Ken

Thanks guys for the help.

A small management detail, Kah Kit: Be sure to track expiration dates on your contracts. Clients aren't going to contact you when the period ends. It will be up to you to "ping" them and negotiate new terms for an extension, or issue a formal expiration notice.