Jewellery Photography Contract

I'm working for a small, local jewelers (UK) who wants me to photograph approximately 1000 items of jewellery for their website and other advertising/promotion work. I've already done 32 images of which he has paid me. I've now made a simple draft contract that I emailed the client but he doesn't seem to want to sign it. He said our email communication and the fact that images were exchanged for money acts as a de-facto contract and he acts the purpose of this contract. He assumes because he is paying for the images that he has full copyright and doesn't seem to realise that I the photographer own the copyright and that I would license it's use to him. I don't want to transfer copyright over to him (because then I wouldn't be able to use my own images!) but I am happy to give him pretty much full freedom to use the images how he wants. However, I don't want him to sell my images on stock imaging websites or to third parties, but I am happy for him to put the photos on his brothers website.

Can you read the ownership section of my contract below and help state this clearly? I am struggling.

Image Ownership & Usage
A) All photos and rights remain the property of the photographer.
B) Ownership is different from usage and the client is given world-wide, unlimited usage rights for an unlimited amount of time, in an unlimited amount of mediums and alterations for promotional and advertising usage of their company.
C) The client may not, however, re-licence or sell ownership of the images to others as their own. This includes reselling the images as it is a violation of the copyright agreement.

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You want to give him a contract with an unlimited use license for his specific website, but no rights of ownership, sale or transfer of those images without specific permission from the photographer. What you have there is more or less what I've said, but I'm sure there are sample contracts out there with specific legal language.

Forgive me my honest opinion.

Make the price worth giving up your copyright. If I were him I wouldn't sign it either. You are creating stock shots for him, not masterpieces that he can't get from the next guy. If it were art images it would be a different story. Take the money and enjoy the business, perhaps you'll get more down the road. Sometimes we go a bit overboard on this stuff.

If this were a big jewelry "company" my response would be different.

Yes I agree sell him the photos as stock photos.
And maybe you can get other business from him or other
jewelers.

Or factor in what he's make per piece and do a rough % per sale. Fair game as well.

From your client's perspective:

I also wouldn't sign. The terms should have been in your original quotation for the work, otherwise your terms are implied from the written & verbal communications. At this point you want to create new terms otherwise you won't continue, or is it bluff? Whichever option, it looks unprofessional. They will wish that they'd used a pro studio.

From your perspective:

You are starting off with a good client for some product shoot work. Do a good job for the client & you'll get something for your portfolio & some word of mouth marketing. Take the hit, apologise for your error in not setting terms at the start & agree to continue as before. Make sure you do it right next time.

Ok, fine. So how should I word this part of the contract? Anyone care to write me a sentence or two?

gohan2091 said:

Ok, fine. So how should I word this part of the contract? Anyone care to write me a sentence or two?

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I'm wondering how you can change the contract once the work has started.

The work has started but no contract has been submitted yet so the contract can't change as it only exists in draft.

A contract is fixed before work starts, if there's no written contract, then the contract is implied from correspondence & verbally. So a written contract now, is an alteration to the original (verbal) contract -which is a bit unprofessional. This is why I advised against changing it as it would do you no good & be almost pointless.

Why not pop along a a local solicitor? They can explain it to you & also help draft a contract for future work. Small solicitor firms are not that expensive. Also organisations like the BFP may well have a form of words that you can use in the future.

Membership | Bureau of Freelance Photographers

Only a basic agreement was made, I mentioned on the first day that I will draft a written agreement for us to sign soon. It's not really there for legal purposes, more so that we are clear what to expect from each other. I've no desire in paying a solicitor for this but for future works, I'll have some planned out. (I already have a contract for Weddings that I do)