When you sell your stock illustration thru a stock house, does the stock house retain the copyright? Or can you resell it after you have done your 5 year stint?

Tsandi

Tsandi,

Never have a stock house Retain your copyrights. If they retain the copyright it would be a "your life time +70 years" stint instead of a "5 year" stint. Read the contract fine print VERY carefully it they do. Some (if not all) stock houses have it so you can not sell the same images as stock elsewhere while they have them. I would highly recommend that you don't do a 5 year stint with any stock house. You are hurting the illustration industry as a whole when you sell your work to a stock house as well as possibly competing against yourself in the future. Please read the past post's about stock houses on this board to see that others feel the same way. Do a search in the "stock exchange" section.

If you want to sell stock art I would recommend that you sell it yourself and retain all rights and profit, through the folioplanet.com or your can sell it through the ispot.com with an illustrator friendly set up.

Jay
http://www.jaymontgomery.com


On 2/15/04 1:24:41 PM, Tsandi Crew wrote:
>When you sell your stock
>illustration thru a stock
>house, does the stock house
>retain the copyright? Or can
>you resell it after you have
>done your 5 year stint?
>
>Tsandi
>

On 2/15/04 1:24:41 PM, Tsandi Crew
wrote:
>When you sell your stock
>illustration thru a stock
>house, does the stock house
>retain the copyright? Or can
>you resell it after you have
>done your 5 year stint?

I would not place my work with a stock

house—with the exception of one—under

any circumstances, because their
promises greatly exceed the reality, and

while you do not give up copyright, you

give up all exclusive rights, and therefore

total control to your images for 5 years.

Agencies' hyped promos are lavish
overstatements meant to seduce
illustrators with lofty promises of profit

and prestige. Unless you are in the
highest level of premium illustrators, you

will see returns as low as $10 an image,

and those returns will decline over the

years. Your commission actually goes

down over time. This has been my
personal experience as a veteran of
stock agency dealings.

Not only that, but it can be like pulling

teeth to extricate your work from one of

these agencies. They are not quick to

make return of your work a priority. Some

of them even keep your work, and after

severing relations—sometimes years

after—they'll call you to ask if you'd like

them to handle a transaction for a client

who is interested in your work! They will

not refer the client to you. So, they
maintain possession of your image
forever, unbeknownst to you. Once you let

the horse out of the barn, that horse is

gone forever. This has happened with

numerous images of mine over the years.


Far better that you *maintain control* of

rights to your work at all times, in
perpetuity, as they say, and opt for
Folioplanet, the i-spot, or your own
custom search engine on your website.


http://www.robertsaunders.com

uh - doesn't ispot have an exclusive on your work?

On 2/15/04 1:24:41 PM, Tsandi Crew wrote:
>When you sell your stock
>illustration thru a stock
>house, does the stock house
>retain the copyright?

No, never, unless you specifically and in writing
grant it to them, which there is no reason on earth
you would do unless you're cerfiably insane.

>Or can
>you resell it after you have
>done your 5 year stint?

Yes, absolutely. Correct terminology would be:
you resell rights to it, or license it.

http://www.robertsaunders.com