Justification - Leasing shots

Interesting debate with a friend today. Since I don't shoot Commercial, I have no real idea how this works.

Commercial photography seems to be relatively unique when buying a service you are only leasing the shots for a set medium/length of term and charged accordingly. If you buy a car it's yours (apart from servicing/road taxes etc), books, and many other consumer items.

So how is this justified? If you had a client come up up to you and say I want some shots of the the staff here, how can you justifiy that they are only leasing the shot for say for internal usage and for one year for example? I realise you retain the copyright in most cases, but is that sufficient to justify the lease?

No I'm not in this boat but I'm curious and in some ways, for me, its' a just in case. On none of the business sites I've been to have to research this have I seen this core question answered. They all say you lease the shots and charge accordingly, but little reason as to why the industry is this way.

It works this way because photographs often have value and income potential beyond the initial purpose. However, clients are usually only willing to pay for the value of their immediate use-a lease. They always have the option to purchase photography services with a copyright transfer-buyout, but that is much more expensive. The right way to present this to clients is to create a full value of the images, and then show that their limited usage requirement provide them a significant discount.

Many creative products are sold this way-movies, music, and fine art are all products were usage/leasing/licensin​g is typically part of the overall value. Part of the way a smart photography business works is to contiue to resell the use of pictures already taken.

-Scott

So do how does that apply to say a headshot of a CEO? I can see how it can apply to performers and the like but for say a product shot of a company, shots of facilities and the like surely you can't release to 'public' domain for other people to use?

The headshot of a CEO can easily be sold to media outlets for high profile companies. There have been many pictures of the Auto Industry CEOs in print lately. Likewise shots of facilities and products can have media or stock value if properly released. Yes-companies often want full control/copyright ownership over images shot for their purposes, but may be unable to afford the full value.

-Scott

Ok thanks for your info. it's helped me understand where people was coming from.

Faolan wrote in post #8082646
Interesting debate with a friend today. Since I don't shoot Commercial, I have no real idea how this works.

Commercial photography seems to be relatively unique when buying a service you are only leasing the shots for a set medium/length of term and charged accordingly. If you buy a car it's yours (apart from servicing/road taxes etc), books, and many other consumer items.

So how is this justified? If you had a client come up up to you and say I want some shots of the the staff here, how can you justifiy that they are only leasing the shot for say for internal usage and for one year for example? I realise you retain the copyright in most cases, but is that sufficient to justify the lease?

No I'm not in this boat but I'm curious and in some ways, for me, its' a just in case. On none of the business sites I've been to have to research this have I seen this core question answered. They all say you lease the shots and charge accordingly, but little reason as to why the industry is this way.

To use the car analogy, whereas copyright buyout would be like buying the car (though, more so like buying the manufacturer in all debate, but bare with me) licensing and leasing images would be like leasing or financing the images; you can do what you want for a time, with the contract you sign ..but the author (dealership) retains the car and has to take care of it for you. You pay by month, or bi-week, or whatever plan you go with.

There`s a lot of talk about stock in this forum, lately, I presume someone went through waking up old posts to find the answer to their questions..I`m not a fan of microstock, though I do traditional stock, and I`m not too educated on the evolution of microstock but I think it`s a pattern.

This is my theory:

1995-2005: Camera technology is to get cheaper...more cheap DSLRs on the market...more people snap like crazy and more people do photography not as a profession but as a hobby or second business. Small payouts start to get more common because the industry is diluted with a huge amount of images.

This drums up business for editorial agencies, marketing and advertising commercial sectors. Eventually every saturated (over saturated in this case) industry reaches its apex and collapses (bell curve?) and I think that is what is beginning to happen now (digital railroad went out of business) along with the recession in the western world.

Maybe traditional stock will make a comeback, but maybe what will happen is there will be another evolution to the way the photography industry works (i have a theory a big one is coming).

It's also a bit like software - You pay $100's for Photoshop but you never actually own it - you are granted a license to use with restrictions.

Most people don't however see or understand the differemce.