Wondering if any of you had experience/expertise regarding the purchase/licensing of art for commercial purposes.
My son is publishing a book/game, and intends to obtain “art” to illustrate it. When contracting, I suppose the practical answer is you can agree to anything that you and the artist agree on/wish to pay for. But I wondered if anyone had any experience as to “industry practices/standards.”
For example, one artist offered to sell 5/10/15 year “licenses” to use the art, after which my son would either have to re-license (at what terms?) or the artist could sell the work for other purposes.
I guess in my ignorance, I had assumed the purchaser was “buying” the art, and could use it for whatever they wanted. But I can understand that if the book is tremendously successful, the artist could reasonably want some expectation to share in that success. And they might want to insure that the art which was sold for one purpose (this book/game), might want to prevent it from being used for an entirely different purpose (Porn? 
Or even just an on-line presence, advertising and such.)
The dollar amounts involved are relatively low, and I have no delusions that my kid’s project is going to grow into a Spielberg blockbuster. But I imagine there are some pretty common factors that should be anticipated/addressed. And tho my wife and I are both lawyers, we have NO experience in this sort of thing. As lawyers, my impression is that as soon as you get anywhere removed from a simple purchase, the contracting language could get mighty complicated mighty fast.
Welcome any thoughts/experience you might have.
Professional illustrator/designer since 1996 here.
One question that I think makes a difference; is he looking to license pre-existing illustrations, or does he want to commission new ones? When I deal with selling license usage for art (whether it’s existing illustrations or newly commissioned pieces), I generally do NOT sell full copyright; usually I sell either limited (illustrations may be used in specific application(s) or unlimited usage rights (say they’re selling a toy and they may need to be able to use the illustration for packaging, instruction booklet, print ads, web ads and website store; they would want the unlimited rights) for a set period of time. They may want to negotiate about exclusive usage rights as well, meaning that for the duration of their license I would not be able to sell usage rights to anyone else (though usually they’re happy with an arrangement where they have exclusive usage rights in their particular industry, so in that case I WOULD be able to sell usage rights to another client so long as they’re not in competition with the first client).
For the type of project you described, it’s probably the most economical option for your son to buy limited, non-exclusive usage rights for 3-5 years and renegotiate at the end of the term, so I think your instincts are pretty much on.
Thx for the response.
He’s looking for original art. This is a steampunk, tabletop game along the lines of D&D, so he’s looking for “fantasy” images of elves, monsters, and whatever. I know NOTHING about that type of art/game/fiction, and have ZERO artistic skills, so please excuse/dispel my ignorance if I say something insulting.
In my ignorance, I thought he should be able to hook up with some college art student. I don’t think the images are all that complex, or should take too much time for someone who is into that. And I kinda imagined he could buy the pictures for - I don’t know - some rate from $50-200-ish depending on size, detail, complexity, etc. From the art I’ve seen so far, each drawing does not impress me as something that should take someone with talent more than 30-60 minutes. With the assumption that he could essentially use them for any “reasonable” purpose related to his book/game. (PM me if you are even mildly curious about seeing his website, where he has some art up.)
I guess I’m curious about the extremely unlikely possibility. Let’s say he licenses the art for 5 years, and the project really takes off. The artist could have him over a barrel, seeking huge fees to renew. At which point my kid’s option would be to pay up or go with another artist. If he chose that, I assume he’d want to be able to ensure the artist did not sell/use the art in a way to compete or cause confusion w/ my kid’s project.
Are these types of concerns ridiculously unlikely in your experience? I don’t deal with many visual artists. Unfortunately, in my career as a lawyer, I deal with a sizeable percentage of scumbags and liars (lawyers AND clients! ;)) Makes one kinds cynical.
Lawyers may seem like they make things complicated, but they generally try to anticipate the most likely possibilities. In this transaction, my kid is a neophyte. He doesn’t plan on anything other than (hopefully) making back a small portion of the time he spent on his hobby. I’m just trying to figure what minimal precautions he needs to take when contracting with folk for whom this is their profession.