Hi,

I'm not a commercial photographer, but I hire models for my portfolio work and for promo cards that I use to obtain portrait clients, etc.  I always have the model sign a standard model release.

I recently talked to a model about posing for me and she wanted a contract asking for 50% of any royalties if I should happen to license, or sell any photos of her.  She said a photographer had once hired her for a shoot and later licensed one of the photos for $5k, and since there was no royalty agreement in place she missed out on making some extra bucks.  I could better understand an agreement where the model and photographer are working in collaboration and they hold joint copyright, but not so much if the model is being paid up front.

I would like to get your perspective on this type of thing.  And I'd especially like to hear what models think.

Thanks for your input.

Bill

In my opinion (I am an engineer, not a lawyer)  If the model was paid the image belongs to you.   I have a separate model release for TFP shoots.   In this release I state that if an image from the shoot gets sold the model will recieve a royalty.

What do you offer as a percentage on your TFP?? 

If it's TFP, 50% sounds fair to me...  Trade for Trade, and half the work is done by each you...  BUT you should also get 50% if she sells the images for her own use....

Be reasonable... fair is fair.

In a perfect world, if you pay her to shoot, then I think all rights should be yours, and visa versa...

However, realistically speaking from an unbiased business point of view, one does not make set demands of royalty share...  One negotiates.  After all, who is fronting the money for the primary investment of materials and miscellaneous expenses? 

I myself use a sepate release for TFP, stating anywhere from 15 to 30% of sold artwork, AFTER EXPENSES; i.e. when I make a print and sell it I need the cost of the print, mat, any shipping, etc, all removed first, before i give him/her anything.

How does a photographer sell a photo to be used for commercial purposes without a model release?  most people that are business savvy won't buy a photo without a model release. 

If the shoot were a tfp the release should only be for personal promotional usage, any usage beyond that should be negotiated when the offer is made (IMO)   I have had 2 instances I know of where a photographer has sold photos from a test I worked on.  The model was paid and the photographer was paid, of course the makeup artist was left out of the loop. It would have been nice to give me a cut since the company that made the purchase wouldn't have wanted the shot without the great makeup and hair    

I think making the deal up front that the shots may be sold and this is the deal... 50%  is pretty smart on the models part, it's like a prenuptial agreement...they are akward but they keep everyones intentions pure and give you something to fight with in court should it ever come to that.

It just doesn't make sense. If you look at what I wrote in the  "shared copyright" thread you'll get an idea of what high quality photography is worth, what it's worth to a model and the tremendous discount they're getting even when they pay at the high end for test shoots. When they do "tfp" they're actually getting paid money essentially by receiving hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of free photo services and prints or files.

If the model thinks getting photos from you, either for a fee you paid her, or for what she paid you, or in trade, was worth whatever the arrangement was and signed a release knowing what she was getting into  then it is already fair. Why sign a release knowing it allows for the possibility of the photographer licensing the work commercially if you don't think the terms are ok at the time you're signing?

The fact is that if it was a tfp, or some sort of paid shoot for any sort of practice on either part, or for the books of one or both parties and not for a specific commercial assignment then the future sales potential is a crap shoot. And in the vast majority of model portfolio testing or shooting the future commercial potential is probably very small. Go through a thousand profiles on MM and tell me what % of photos have any real potential as advertising photos in the real world?

Now if it's an experienced stock shooter specifically shooting marketable scenarios based on his research on the market and or input from a quality editor at a good stock agency the odds go way up for future usage possibilities.

But even the best producing, highest grossing stock shooters are playing a numbers game and they have either many, or hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of shots on file that don't sell for every one that does. And those shooters are either paying fair market rates for models, or again, the model is agreeing that shots for their own book, their own marketing, are worth getting in exchange for allowing the photographer to use the work. Some photographers do actually agree to some sort of fee splitting or royalties on future sales (though I've never heard as high as 50% from an experienced shooter), but it's problematic and most just work with an up front agreement.

So even if a photographer wants to share some of the money in any of the mentioned scenarios why would it be as much as 2500 bucks, or 50%, or anything much over what a model would have been possibly paid in the first place if it was either a professional stock shoot or a regular commercial assignment in the first place?

Please call the top NYC agencies in both fashion and commercial and inquire about hiring a beginning model or an average unknown model for a stock shoot, which is what the scenarios we're talking about are, at best. Tell us what rates are quoted. Now figure in that this most likely an unknown freelance model so the rates should be even lower. If she's inexperienced in the type of modeling needed, even lower still.

The fact is, that however much many of you don't think it's fair or wish it wasn't so, the market is such that models, on average, don't get paid anywhere near what photographers do in the commercial world. If a model in the real world demanded such an agreement she would get laughed at at best, probably asked who the fuck she thinks she is, told to go home, and would be blacklisted in the industry.

Also facts are that, on average again, models don't spend anywhere near what photographers do on their respective tools of the trade and in training, schooling, and getting themselves to the point of being useful at what they do. In terms of the marketplace they're not equals and don't bring equal value to a shoot, again, on average, no matter what some people here will tell you. The vast majority of models or wannabe models come to the game with nothing more than themselves and the clothes on their backs and have invested little else, but even for the ones who have invested in more it doesn't add up to what the average photographer has invested in time, training and equipment over many years if they're at the point of doing quality commercial work that's going to be used at high prices as mentioned. The average costs of getting a commercial photography biz off the ground are something like 50 grand, and most are spending thousands or tens of thousands more each year to keep up and progress.

And by the way, I totally love and appreciate models. I'm sure it sounds like I'm being anti-model to some or trying to denigrate them or downplay their contributions. That's not the  case, models can make or break a shoot and a great model is an inspiration. It's just that there are so many outrageous expectations and unrealistic impressions of what things are really like by the throngs of web models, and that's what I'm responding to

I think there is some serious dreaming going on - or at least some very optimistic maths. (Bistromathics anyone?)

Lets see for a $5K picture sale it is almost certainly done through a pic library... so the first 50% goes to them. Then the model wants 50% - well if you say so... oh, and presumably that is each if there is more than one model. Then as Mary says, you really ought to pay the H&MUA - well, the model has set the standard, so I guess that's 50% to them as well. Oh, and the stylist - bound to be 50% too. But yes, as photographer you probably deserve a bit more, so lets say 70% to you.

Thing is, I'm sure the percentages are supposed to add up to 100...

Well, there's always pleasantly plump...  That sounds kinda sweet...

Actually, make's 'em sound kinda cuddly...

The copyright to a photographic image always belongs to the photographer, unless specifically assigned elsewhere. Model agreements/releases are/should be a negotiated agreement between the parties. Standard releases are fine in some instances or many. The issue is not whether the model was paid or not, but whether the model agrees to perform the services to be performed and on what terms. Work that out PRIOR to the shoot, not during or after.
I'd venture to say that in some ways every shoot with a human subject is a collaborative effort. Models have the right to demand whatever terms they wish PRIOR to agreeing to the shoot. If the situation you refer to is being negotiated after shooting and after accepting payment, the model should be pretty much s***outtaluck. Too late. Payment accepted on the terms you'd already discussed. You did discuss the terms, right?

Generally I offer 30% after expenses when I shoot for spec or fine art. This is to cover anything from an MUA to time spent negotiating usage and fees. This percentage slides if the image sales total a certain amount (depends on what I'm shooting). Let's face it if I sell an image for $10,000 and my expenses are $1000. The model is getting $2700, which is more than she would have for day worth of work.

mike

When I shoot TFP I keep all the rights, but I also give the models headshots(I don't need anymore headshots for my portfolio,) in exchange for the other work we do.

I have been in a couple of galleries, but sold nothing. Even if I did sell a photo I did TFP in a gallery, or to a stock agency, it would nowhere equal the amount of money I have put in to photography as a whole. Getting these showings together costs money, a lot of money.

Currently I do not offer models a % of images I sell. This has not been a problem since I haven't sold any :-)

But, I am putting together some coffee mugs for sale at a few stores in town. I will be paying to have the mug made, I will be hoofing it to different establishments to sell the damn things, I will have to put together the graphics, spend the time etc...

From what I have seen most photographers who sell an image spend a great deal of money and time marketing themselves, contacting companies who deal in stock, hoofing it to galeries, preparing showings, creating websites, contacting models and setting up shoots etc...

Paying a model 50% would be like giving half a loaf of bread to the guy who sold you grain. He didn't plant it, water it, harvest it, mill it, bake it, or put it in one of those nifty plastic bags and drive it to the market.

The model who had her image sold for 5k should be happy that she can now go to other photographers and say, see here is an image of me that sold for 5k. Because images of me sell I do not test for free, my hourly rate is...

I also, when I sign releases, sign releases only for the use of the image for publicity stills, web release, and book use. It specifically requires my permission to sell or use the image in a project that will be sold... I hope all this made sense,

Star

I simply put in my release that the model has the right to use the images we make as they see fit.  All the photographers around here seem to read that and get this vision of models selling my work for piles of money behind my back, but that's never the case.  The models rarely take it past putting them on their website or posting them on sites like this, OMP, LiveJournal or perhaps DeviantArt.  Heck, I can't even sell my work, so why would I worry about a model doing it?

I'll be honest, I have no idea what a commercial photographer deals with.  The few times I've dabbled in shooting for money, I found the clients and "art directors" so utterly distasteful that I'm much happier working a day job and shooting what I want on my own time.  I really don't know what the model/photographer relationship is in the commercial world, but I have a system that seems to work well both for myself and the models.

I've never really worked out a royalty agreement.  I prefer to be paid up front or disallow commercial usage rather than tery to figure out what's sold where and who gets what later.  If I were to work out a deal in which I was paid a percentage of the photographer's future sales, I can't imagine it would ever be as high as 50%.

I have had two photographers claim they would give me up to 50% of sales. One never sold anything. The other just never bothered. It wasn't in wiritng and I'm not particular broken up about it.

There are many ways you can work with this. First, you can hire a model and that is as far it goes when it comes to sales of the image. You can also do a cash/profit sharing shoot where you pay her some money and then offer a percentage of sales. Third, would be a straight profit sharing shoot where you work out some type of percentage that will be given to the model when images are bought.

I have done some profit sharing type shoots and I normally split the money. If I have a makeup artist, normally I don't because they want more money than the models, then I would work it out differently. I definitely wouldn't pay a model a full rate and then give her a percentage of profits. This to me is just like models who want to get paid their full rate and then ask if you can give them a CD with the images, LOL what a fucking joke!

Last, the one thing I think many models, mainly the new ones, don't understand is that magazines pay you shit for images! I have come across models who think I make a million dollars off of an editorial shot that is published 1/2 page in a magazine and I have to explain the situation. Now I talk with models up front and explain that editorial is mainly for recognition and tear sheets, the girls who are really trying to make up except this without a problem. Of course if something were published large, like a full page in Maxim (dreams), then I would split that cash up! I mean Maxim probably pays $400 for a full page editorial shot and they are a huge magazine, think what smaller publications are going to pay.

Well anyway now that you hot models see this you can contact me about shooting (Damn I am plugging away like the Pizza Dude Gary LOL!!!)

Hi, just wanted to thank you all for your perspectives!

Bill