Your day rate pays for your time. Where your work is used, for how long and by whom is a separate thing: usage. Many UK creatives under-charge because they give usage away without noticing. Here's how copyright and licensing work, in plain English.
Who owns the work?
In the UK, copyright is automatic: you don't register or pay for it. For photographs taken on or after 1 August 1989, the photographer usually owns the copyright, even when a client commissioned and paid for the shoot. The main exceptions are when you're an employee doing your job, or when your contract signs the copyright over to the client.
So unless you've agreed otherwise, the client is paying for permission to use your work, not for the work itself. That permission is a licence, and you decide its terms. Video, design and writing have their own details, so whatever you make, agree ownership and usage in writing.
What a licence should say
- Where: social, website, email, print, packaging, outdoor, TV, paid ads.
- How long: for example one year, two years, or in perpetuity.
- Where in the world: UK only, Europe, worldwide.
- Exclusive or not: can you license the same images to anyone else?
- Who can use it: just the client, or their agencies and retailers too?
Pricing usage
The wider, longer and more exclusive the use, the more it's worth. A set of images for a brand's own Instagram for a year is a very different deal from the same images on posters and paid ads nationwide. Quote usage as its own line, separate from your day rate. That makes it easy to explain, and easy for the client to buy more later (an extension or extra media is new income for work you've already done).
Put it in writing
- State the licence on your quote and invoice, in plain words.
- Say what happens if they want more: "additional usage by agreement".
- Keep it consistent, so you can spot when work is used beyond what was agreed.
Work out the time part with the day rate calculator, then add usage on top. For pitching the work in the first place, see how to pitch to brands.