Thanks for the words of encouragement. I am well aware there is no one answer. I am also aware that everyone is poverty stricken when negotiating a fee. Your Disney story reminds me of the time a certain very large computer company (name starts with M) was wanting to use one of our photos ... they also tried to plead poverty and negotiate a lower fee.
We are a non-profit, and federally funded, as is the case with many museums, so we do not want to seem grasping. We just want to be fairly treated by these big publishers.
What I am really looking for is not someone telling me what their standard fee schedule is. I am looking for strategies on how to set fees when dealing with large commercial publishers and products and multiple format requests.
Most museums quote a commercial photo use fee that is for one time use, one language. So, suppose a large commercial concern asks you instead for the right to use that photo not just once but asks for rights like this:
"Minor revisions granted for six (6) years (minor revisions defined as less than 10% change in photo content from the original product), or until a major revision, whichever comes first."
How might you calculate a bump up to your one time use fee to include these revision rights? Would you think doubling it would be fair, or tripling it?
Most of the time, museums rights people consider each format as a separate product and would charge a separate fee for each.
So, if you get a request from a large commercial publisher for use of your image in a print book (2 languages), a cd version of the book, and a web version of the book, do you charge 3-4 times your normal one time use fee, i.e. the full fee for each product, or do you give a discount for the additional formats? If you give a discount, what would you consider fair - full fee for the first format and then 25% off the full fee for each additional format, or maybe 50% off the full fee?
I am just trying to get a sense of what ideas others may have had in dealing with similar types of requests. I would like to be somewhat consistent in how I handle requests, and not just base it on how flush I think the requesting business is.
Felicia Pickering
-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Chris Brown
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 8:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] rights and repros
Ms. Pickering -- the problem is, there's no standard answer. What you
can charge for reproductions and copyrights is totally up to you, when
you have a private collection. In such a case, just like everything
else, value is all about rarity, exclusivity, and what terms your
market will bear.
Other collections (like the publicly owned state archives in FL where
once upon a time I was a film archivist) have statutes directing their
duplication and pricing systems. Although publicly funded, such
institutions still must find ways to generate revenue to support their
programs -- and like yours, deserve to gain from the use of their
collections.They charge nominal one-time fees for various format
copies of material in the public domain.
If what you have is special and in demand, don't be afraid to play
tough. And do expect all your potential customers to be poverty
stricken. When I was producing something, in the other role as a
user/patron of such archives, I was always poverty stricken -- and
made every kind of deal under the sun. Sometimes I traded out services
that were "better than money" because of my expertise in the subject
matter or the handling of the archival materials.
And in the third role, as archival footage provider, I had the
pleasure of playing hardball with the Disney corporation for some cool
underwater footage I shot. During negotiations they explained that
they couldn't pay very much, of course, because they too are
perpetually...... poverty stricken. ;-))
Regards,
Chris Brown
ATELIER Kathleen Brown
www.kb-atelier.com
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