Sourcing Images For Your Writing Clients

Occasionally a client will ask you to source images for him.

Here’s the thing: clients can have weird ideas about copyright. “Just find something online,” your client might say.

When you hear a comment like that, it’s your pleasure to inform your client about copyright. Here’s what you tell him: you pay for image licenses. Notice that you pay for the license to use an image in a specific way, and for the number of times you can use it, not for the image itself.

You pay for a license, because the creator owns the image. If you take a snapshot with your smartphone camera, you OWN the image. You own all the rights to it, because you created it. However, you can assign rights to others.

Let’s say that you’re on your way home, and you see that a large building is on fire. You’re a writer, so you stop, and you take some photos. When you get home, you call the local paper, and tell them you have photos of the fire. If the paper’s editor is interested, he’ll ask you for the images, and will tell you which rights he’s prepared to license — for money. (Or you can tell him which rights you’re offering, your choice.)

To repeat, the creator of an image OWNS the image.

If you’re unsure about copyright law, please make an effort to understand it. It’s important, because just as no one can use your writing without permission, no one can use images without permission, and usually, payment of some kind.

Wikipedia will get you started on the concept of copyright:

Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is “the right to copy”, but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other, related rights. It is an intellectual property form (like the patent, the trademark, and the trade secret) applicable to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete.

Your image source: stock photo libraries

When I source images for a client, I get them from a stock photo library. Dreamstime is one such library, there are many others online.

There’s a reason I get them from a stock photo library: there’s a record. I know which licenses of an image I’ve purchased on behalf of the client. It’s an expense. Once the client pays me, the licenses transfer to him. I no longer have the right to use the images. I add the image to the client’s folder. If there’s ever a query about the image, I know exactly where I bought the license, as well as the limitations of that license. I’ve covered myself, and the client is covered too.

So, when a client asks you to source images, always be sure to have a record of exactly where you got the images, which rights you licensed, and a receipt. Five years from now, if there’s a query, you’re covered, because you can go to the client’s folder, find the image, and know exactly where you got it, and how much you paid.

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