legal - How to respond to requests to commercially use one's photos without compensation?

I am an amateur photographer and every now and then, I get an email along these lines:

Hi there, I really like your photo of X [LINK] and would like to use it in my/our magazine/brochure/website. Unfortunately I don't have a budget to pay you for the use of the image. Would you still be ok if I used this photo?

I always like when people want to use my photos, but I don't allow commercial use without permission. I license them under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.
If it's clearly a commercial project they want to use the photo for, I feel like I should be paid.

I never quite know what's a good way to respond.

1. Do you explain why you think you should be compensated or do you just say that they can purchase it for a certain amount of money?


2. What's a good price to ask (I guess that's really hard to answer, but a minimum price for example, would be really handy to know)?



3. Do you publicly list your prices somewhere, so people can find out themselves without asking you?


4. Is it realistic at all to think people are willing to pay for photos?

I would like to sell my photo and I don't want to turn someone down right away with completely unrealistic prices and the like. However, if they are not willing to compensate me at all, I am ok with them not using my photo.

Answer

You absolutely should be paid. And not only that, you absolutely have the right to protect your work. There are dangers associated with offering "free use" of your work, as once you do, you can never really tell how far your work may be distributed "for free". The company you license it to may turn around and license another company to create some design with it. Once its out "in the corporate wild", you could lose control of it entirely.

As for "not having a budget", doubtful. I worked for a company that did a lot of graphic design for a couple years. I hated the company as they practiced ethically and morally borderline and often out right wrong practices on an all too frequent basis. One of their tactics was to search for photography online and when they found something they liked, they would send out a sob-story email like the one you got. They leeched more work off of more desperate and unaware photographers than I could count. Whenever they couldn't get something for free, they would either offer money, or find something not free and pay for it. They certainly had a budget for such things, and a large one at that.

Your work is you. It's your style. It's an expression of you. It should require compensation for use. Don't let the snide, underhanded tactics of a greedy corporation leave you without control of your art or the compensation you deserve. Ask for reasonable compensation, and make sure you supply a proper commercial use license to limit how far they can "internally distribute" you work, so you don't lose control over who actually has what rights to it.

So, to your specific points:

1. 
   

   Simply ask that they pay for its use, and be clear, in writing with a proper license, about what "use" means. Don't give them freedom to use it as they please. Make sure they use it only for the specific case they need it for right now. Make them pay you again for additional use for different purposes. Alternatively, ask for a LOT of money for the right to use it as they please for as long as they please (Perpetual, limitless.)

   
   


2. 
   

   "How much" is pretty subjective. Its something you could determine based on the company and their intended usage. You could simply put together a standard price list for your work and various usage scenarios. Factor in your effort, how much value you would give the photo yourself, and how much use the company expects to get. If they only expect to use it in one specific case for one specific thing that may have a limited timeframe of existence, you might ask for a lower price. If they expect perpetual usage rights without limitation, and/or the right to license its use to someone else who may use it in work done for the company, you should ask for much more. Perpetual usage is the holy grail of usage rights...it really shouldn't come cheap. How "cheap" or "expensive" depends on how you think your work compares to top notch professional work. You'd probably need to do some research to figure out where your work might fit on a "pricing scale". If you have never sold anything before and think you might have a hard time selling it at what you would consider a fair price, consider lowering your prices a bit until you have an established reputation.

   
   


3. 
   

   Entirely up to you. Depends on how you want to sell your work, either on a case-by-case basis, or as a key part of your professional work as a photographer. If the purpose of your photography is to provide high quality stock photos for fixed prices for specific terms of usage, you probably want to create a web site that has examples of your work and your price list. One thing to note...NOT having a price list is often beneficial, as you can negotiate price on a sale by sale basis. Some companies may be willing to pay more, some are going to be rather stingy. If you are just starting out, you might find a lot of value in keeping your prices fluid and learn what the sweet spot is that sells the most work at the highest possible price. Once you have established an average, you'll be better equipped to produce a readily available price list.

   
   


4. 
   
   

   Absolutely. The amount you might get for photography today is subjective, and less than it was a number of years ago, which was itself significantly less than a number of years before that (before the age of ubiquitous, cheap digital stock and oppressive bullies like Getty Images and co.) A few years from now you may find that its harder to get as good a price as you might want today. Sadly, the state of affairs with for-pay photography is there are too many cheap photographers who just want a microsecond of fame and recognition, and are all too willing to give their work up for free. That has put some severe downward pressure on prices for photographic work. You can probably reverse that trend for your own work if you establish yourself as someone who produces very high quality photography worthy of the price. However yes...it is realistic to think that people and companies will pay for photography these days.