(Longtime UK artist, painter, and printmaker Colin Ruffell illuminates the arcane world of artwork licensing with this article, which is taken in part from Colin's book, "How to Make a Living As An Artist: A Guide to Survival and Success", copyright © Colin Ruffell 2004 [first published as an e-book Aug. 2004, first printed edition May 2005]. --Harald Johnson) How to Benefit from Licensing by Colin Ruffell Text and images © 2004-2005 Colin Ruffell What is licensing for artists and how does it work? Licensing refers to the use of artwork for a secondary purpose. A good example would be the use of a painting, photography, or digital art as the image on a greetings card. Other typical fine art licensing can be found in calendars, posters, billboards, jigsaw puzzles, T-shirts, ceramics, mouse mats, book and magazine illustration, children's toys, holiday souvenirs, and other gift items. Here are just some of the greetings cards that have been licensed to card publishers by the author. ABOVE: just some of the author's licensed greetings cards. The artist is the licensor and his/her work is licensed for use by the licensee. Contracts A contract between the licensor and licensee would typically be: * for a set period of time, * for an agreed specific usage, * for a specific geographic location, and * for a fixed percentage or fee. The contract should state when the artist gets paid. It might be that an up front payment is made with or without a percentage of later wholesale receipts, or it might be on a percentage of wholesale receipts only. The term used for a percentage of sales is "royalty." Most well established licensees will have a formal licensing agreement already in place, which the newbie artist will be expected to accept. It would be a good idea to talk to other artists, or get specialist legal help, before committing yourself to signing anything. Common pitfalls are that the licensee is a bad payer, or will fail to tell the artist of all sales of the licensed image, or will commit to deals that are not in the artist's best interest. Agencies Established licensing agencies exist that set out to find good deals for the artwork and share the spoils with the artist in exchange for doing the research, selling, checking and invoicing of the manufacturer. Some of these agencies are offshoots of well-established fine art publishing companies themselves. Artists who are published by a print publisher can add to their income by agreeing that the publisher may look for other deals on the artist's behalf. They might have contacts and credibility for art licensing that you as a freelance would never equal. But you will probably have to give them at least half of the licensing income. Other agencies are specialist-licensing businesses that will also be licensing personalities, authors, historic places, special events and the like. They will be very well versed in the uses and income available from the licensing trade. A quick search on Google uncovered many agencies offering services for artists and photographers. Here are just a few: www.artvisions.com http://artimagela.com www.artfxproductions.com/index www.tssphoto.com www.artaskagency.com Specialist trade shows are good places to meet agencies and see what is being promoted by them. These shows often have a programme of seminars to aid the newcomer. One such--"Brand Licensing"--is in London every year (www.brandlicensingexpo.com). Another is "Licensing International" in New York (www.licensingshow.com). ABOVE: Trade shows are good places to meet licensing agencies. The licensing business is huge, with claims for the art sector of an annual turnover of $6 billion. Income Streams Many millions of dollars/pounds/euros/yen per year are spent in this thriving sector of the international market in goods of many varieties, and a specialist licensing agency will be after a share. However, [sigh] the way to get a share of this multi million-dollar bean-feast is quite tricky. You as an artist will be well advised to paint pictures or create images and sell them first, and maybe try dabbling in the hand-made greetings card business when possible. That is unless you hit upon a good set of images, happen across a good agent, who finds a good licensing deal for your work. Then you could do well, very well in fact. At the time of writing this the working fee in the UK for a greetings card image is £250 to £350 for selling the rights to use an image for a couple of years solely as a greetings card. The artist can usually also negotiate to get a small supply [say 100] of cards as a bonus, which he/she can sell at exhibitions for another £100 or so. Fortunately the greetings card industry often produces cards in sets of four or six, or even a dozen. So your income from a good set of images might be £1500 or more. In addition, greetings card publishers, and that includes the massive Christmas card market, will want a supply of new images to appeal to their buyers every year. The calendar market is another place where you might get six or twelve, or even thirteen sales, if you include a cover image, at once. The calendar market works very far in advance and you might be able to get an income for calendar images all year round even though the product really only sells in December. Here is a current best-selling calendar by marketing success phenomenon Thomas Kinkade showing 12 images: ABOVE: A Thomas Kinkade calendar (front and back). An Example of Success The artist Terry Harrison says that he makes a huge supplement to his income from the royalties derived from his images used on jigsaw puzzles. He was surprised to be asked when first approached, and he resisted the offer for a year or two. Now he has bought a brand new Mercedes with income from jigsaw puzzles. Examples of Extra Benefits The artist Natasha Barnes has said that getting published made her famous not rich. The artist Simon Bull has said that the main benefit from publishing cards of his work was the fact that he was getting people to buy his advertising rather than pay for it himself. Award-winning photographer Roger Bamber has enhanced his profile by a series of postcard publications helping him to get many commissions from the news media in the UK. Licensing your images to a card or poster publisher might have the result of making you and your work much better known. But you must insist on being acknowledged on the product to get this benefit. Some products will not be suitable. Copyright Issues As you may already realize, in the UK you own the copyright of your own art. This is automatic and you don't have to do anything to register it. If you sell the art piece to anyone else you retain the copyright even when some one else owns the actual art-piece. When a buyer buys your pictures they do not buy the copyright as well, unless you also sell them the right to copy the art [copyright]. The copyright can only be transferred, from you to any one else, with your agreement in writing. A verbal agreement for transfer of copyright is not binding in law in the UK. If you die, then the copyright remains the property of your estate for another 75 years. This copyright law will be different in other countries. Problems 1. Getting paid. Getting paid if you have a royalty deal is always problematic. You have to trust the firm that is using your image to pay you, on time, and in full. Actually you don't have to trust them. You could use a clause in the agreement that allows you or your representative complete access to their sales accounts so that you can check and verify your entitlement. This option will be found in licensing deals struck between Disney and others. But quite honestly this option is not reasonable for a lone artist because the cost of sending in the accountants will be astronomical. So, do some homework before signing any deals by asking around other artists already on the licensees books about payment and treatment. If the firm wishing to use your image won't tell you the contact details of one of their happy artists, then beware. 2. Conflict of interests. The Fine Art Trade Guild standards for a "limited edition" print stipulate that the image will not be used for any other purpose other than publicity or in a book. ABOVE: Logo of The Fine Art Trade Guild If you have published a print as a "limited edition" then that image must not be used as a poster or a card or a calendar. If you have already used an image as a greetings card, or in a calendar, you should not use the image as a print that claims to be a "limited edition." Beware of regret problems that could occur if you license an image that you might be better off selling as a "limited edition print." Beware of legal problems if you sell an image for licensing income if you have already sold "limited edition" prints of the same image. 3. Percentage issues. Publishers who license your work to produce a poster will typically want to give you 8% of the income. That is only 4% of the retail value because the income that they are using in the calculation is the wholesale income. If you are sharing this income with an agent taking 50% then you will effectively receive 2% of the retail price of your poster. You can only hope that the poster sells many thousands. But it is more likely to be part of the "long tail" of published artists who might sell in the dozens rather than thousands. [Long tail? Publishers typically publish 100 images with expectations that 3 or 4 will sell very well, another five or six will sell quite well, and the other 90 odd will sell just a few each. A line chart showing sales will have a huge lump at one end where the successful images are, and a long tail showing the rest. Average sales from one major publisher's portfolio has been revealed to be just 28. That means that some artists hardly sell anything at all. The publisher's dilemma is knowing which images will make up the head and who will make up the tail.] Conclusion • An artist--traditional or digital--can supplement his/her income by licensing images from their portfolio. • Licensing images is probably not going to be an artist's main income. • The benefits from licensing could be fame rather than fortune. About the Author UK artist Colin Ruffell lives in Brighton, Sussex, England. He has been exhibited in England, Scotland, Wales, Sweden, Germany, Holland, U.S.A., Canada, Japan, Venezuela, and Australia, plus he has works in private and corporate collections worldwide. He is published by The Art Group, Edinburgh Arts, London Contemporary Art, Ecosse Fine Art, Canadian Art Prints, Winn Devon, Hibell Japan, ArtSmile, and Crabfish Ltd. Colin has been a pioneer of changing techniques for artists; in the '90s he spotted the potential of giclee printmaking and the Internet as exhibition space. His enthusiasm led The Fine Art Trade Guild to elect him firstly as a Court Member and then as Chair of The Guilds Printers and Publishers Committee where he is involved in setting worldwide standards for the fine art publishing industry. For more information about Colin and his book, see Colin's website at www.crabfish.com. ^ back to top read other How-Tos here Home | About Us | Advertise | Contact Us News & Reviews | How-To's | Resources © 2002-2005 Harald Johnson Communications. All rights reserved.