Images on clothes, fee?

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petemc

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Pete
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I don't have much information at the moment but tomorrow I'm expecting a call from a worldwide clothing company. They mentioned their autum/winter line up and using my photos in conjunction with it. If they plan to use 2 of my photos on t-shirts or something, what do I charge? Normally I'd just check the NUJ Fees Guide but they don't cover the price for licensing a stock image on a t-shirt. I imagine they'll have a budget and I'll probably just accept it but I'd like to go in knowing whats what. Has anyone had any similar experience? Any tips?
 
I suppose it depends on how many tshirts thay are going to sell. if it's millions than 1p or 5p per shirt? or do they expect you to quote a set fee?
 
Currently I have no idea. I won't know anything more till tomorrow at best, but I don't want to walk in blind. Hopefully they'll understand as its not something anyone I know does often, or at all.
 
I doubt if they'd go for a royalty system and you would have no way of checking how many they actually sold anyway. I'd think you're probably best looking at licenses per country but as to value :thinking: :shrug:
 
Have they said they're going to use a photo on the clothing?
They may use them as backdrops etc... for advertising campaign.
You need to find out how they are going to use them before considering what to charge.

If it is for advertising campaign, they should have quite a hefty budget for it.
 
If they're using it for ads, or brochures, or online imagery then I know what to charge. Its if they're using them on clothes, then I don't know. Its not in "Beyond the lens" or on the AOP site, or on the NUJ site. I just don't want to sound like an idiot on the phone.
 
Ah ha. It just hit me. I can find a similar image on Alamy, put in the details and it gives me a price. Awesome. That'll save a lot of grief.
 
Right, they got back to me. Its not on the clothes its going to the background for the models. This is what they said. A4 card in 600 stores around Europe + UK. Ads in 5 magazines. 6 month web usage. So I put that into Alamy on a similar rights managed image and I get a grand total of £3300 per image. Cool I think till I read this line in their email...

Unfortunately we don’t have a set budget for this but the budget generally is quite low as we like to use our money creatively.
Click to expand...

So I'm guessing £3k is out the question. A similar image of the exact same building on Getty goes for £369 royalty free. So while £3k is what I probably should be charging, I doubt I'll get away with that considering a competitor is charging £369. I've read that in 2002 69% of all Getty's sales were royalty free and I can see why.
 
£500 limited use Pete, or break it down a bit, web use = £100, A4 card in stores = £$$$ etc?
 
Why not try to pass the buck back to them to make an offer - don't forget that their statement on low budgets is all part of the game and if you initially give them a low price they will still expect you to reduce it further.

Tell them that you would normally expect to charge circa £3000 for that useage but you are very interested in being involved with their project so would be willing to negotiate. Ask them what level of cost are they expecting and then make them an offer 10-20% above that.

Just my thoughts based on general rather than photography specific negotiation.
 
I did ask if they had a budget, knowing that it can save a hell of a lot of time and hassle. They didn't have one. Ideally I don't want to look like an idiot who doesn't know what to charge. I've already asked if they have a budget, can't really ask them to make an offer can I? Balls really in my court.
 
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