Commercial Licensing?

[elementgs]

I received an e-mail (as I imagine a lot of you likely did) requesting 6 of my photos to be released for commercial licensing through 500px.

Has anyone had any experience with commercial licensing before and do you happen to have any advice?


I released 3 of my photos which I am content with gambling with but I am holding 3 of them as they are my personal favorites and I really don't want to lose them due to my ignorance.

From my understanding, and by the agreement, I maintain the copyright for these photos and I can cancel the licensing agreement at any time. The thing about that is, I've entered into a contract and through that contract they will commercially license my photos to whomever wishes, right? My simply canceling my end of the bargain does not cancel theirs... they'll still own a license for that photo, correct?

Just wanting to be sure I don't get myself in trouble here. Totally new territory.

Thanks!

 

[ronlane]

The discussion is going on http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-shop-talk/352736-500px-commercial-licensing.html.

 

[Gavjenks]

Totally depends on the wording of the contract.
It would be odd / probably unethical to word it in the way you are describing, but that doesn't mean somebody isn't trying it.

If you want definite answers, you need to ask a lawyer. However, I looked up their terms and they seem pretty straightforward in what they mean, which I do not believe works the way you said:

1. By posting Content to the Site you hereby grant to 500px a non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content in connection with the Services. This license will exist for the period during which the Content is posted on the Site and will automatically terminate upon the removal of the Content from the Site;

I.e. they can do whatever they want with the stuff and give permission to anybody else to do whatever they want with the stuff until/if you remove the content from their site, at which point the whole house of cards collapses, including the third parties.
Which seems like something I would personally not be willing to partake in with any high res photos. This is similar to facebook's terms. I put stuff there, but only small monitor sized resolutions that you can't print usefully or sell for much. I wouldn't go high res.
Also, again, it would be ridiculous for me to give you any sort of guarantee that there aren't loopholes to this. If you're putting up anything you would potentially lose more revenue on than the cost of a lawyer, then consult a lawyer.

 

[elementgs]

Thanks for the response.

I read that part too and yet I am still concerned given the nature of an image once it's on the Internet. The fact is, once the image is out there, it's out there. By me simply removing the photo I can, by contractual agreement, be rest assured that 500px will not be able to use it any longer but how many sub licenses are we talking here? I imagine if someone does a marketing campaign using my images that I simply wouldn't be able to remove that photo from their campaign.

I suppose if they license enough and I make even a modest amount on a photo I should simply shut up and be happy that I made any money at all but I nevertheless wish to ensure that I'm protected as I know all of you would as well.

I don't think I'm too concerned about it with the photos I've released but we'll see from there. I doubt anything will come of this for me personally anyways... Still nice to think.