Media license guide
Who owns your listing photos?
Higginbotham Media keeps the copyright. Once the invoice is paid, you hold a license to market that property for the sale it was photographed for, and closing does not end it. What needs a new license is a later sale, a new owner, or a different agent.
The boundary is the transaction, not a date. This guide walks through what that means for Just Sold posts, your portfolio, sellers who ask to buy the files, and galleries that close.
Ownership
Who owns the photographs.
Higginbotham Media retains copyright ownership of the photographs, video, aerial imagery, and other original media we create unless otherwise agreed in writing.
The photographer owns the pictures. The client buys the right to use them. You are not buying the files when you book a shoot; you are buying the work of making them and a license to use what was delivered. Paying the invoice is what switches that license on.
That split is what lets us keep the price of a listing shoot where it is. A fee that bought the copyright outright would have to cover every future use anyone might make of the images, and it would be a very different number.
Your license
What your license covers.
Once the applicable invoice has been paid, the client receives a limited, non-exclusive license to use delivered media to market the specific property for which it was created.
Three words in that sentence do the work.
- Limited means the license is tied to one property and to the sale it was created for, not to everything you might ever do with the images.
- Non-exclusive means we keep the right to use the work too, in our portfolio and our own marketing, unless you tell us in writing that a property is confidential or off-market.
- The specific property means the license is about the listing, not about you or your brokerage in general. It is yours because you are the one selling that house.
The Terms list what the license generally includes:
- MLS listings
- brokerage and property websites
- real-estate portals
- social media
- email marketing
- brochures and print advertising
- other ordinary marketing directly related to the property
After the sale
What you can keep doing after it closes.
Closing does not switch the license off, and neither does a gallery closing. Everything below is inside the license you already paid for, with nothing more to pay.
The license has no end date and does not end when the property sells. After closing, the client may continue to use the media for marketing related to that property, including “Just Sold” announcements, the client's portfolio, and the client's own marketing.
You can
Post Just Sold
Announce the sale with the photos, on social media, by email, or in print, whenever you like.
You can
Show it in your portfolio
Keep the listing on your website, in your listing presentations, and in your social feeds as an example of your work.
You can
Use it in your own marketing
Postcards, farming mailers, agent bios, brokerage recruiting pages. The license has no end date.
A Just Sold post is marketing related to the property. So is the page in your portfolio that shows the listing you sold. Neither needs a new license, and neither ever will.
A different transaction
What needs a new license.
A change in property ownership, brokerage, listing agent, or listing agreement does not automatically transfer the media license.
The license belongs to the sale it was created for. A different transaction is a different license, and the person who wants to use the pictures for it licenses them from Higginbotham Media directly. Your license does not move with the house, the listing, or the files.
The property sells again
Whether you list it again or someone else does, the next sale is a new transaction with its own license.
A new owner wants the photos
The buyers, or their agent, licensing the set to sell or rent the home later.
The listing changes hands
A different agent or brokerage takes over the listing before it sells.
A third party wants its own use
Builders, architects, interior designers, contractors, property managers, vacation-rental operators, and publications each need a license of their own.
The question we get most
“The seller wants to buy the photos from me.”
Media may not be sold, sublicensed, transferred, or provided to another person or business for unrelated commercial use without our written consent.
The answer is simpler than it feels. You cannot sell them, and you cannot give them away either. Handing over the files, sharing a gallery link so they can download the set, or accepting a reimbursement of your photography fee are all transfers, and the license does not include transfers. It does not matter whether money changes hands, and it does not matter that you are not making a profit.
What to do instead: send the sellers to us. They license the set directly at the current rate for the equivalent package and get a gallery of their own. You stay out of the middle, and nobody has to guess who is allowed to use what.
Galleries
Your gallery expiring is not your license expiring.
Gallery expiration does not terminate an otherwise valid media license.
Agents often assume these are the same thing. They are not. The gallery is where we host the files. The license is your right to use them. Galleries close after the period stated at delivery, typically one year, and we email the gallery's owners before that happens. When the gallery closes, the hosting ends and the license does not.
Download your files while the gallery is open and keep your own copies. Restoring a closed gallery is not guaranteed and may carry a retrieval fee. The pictures you downloaded are still yours to use under the same license as the day they were delivered.
Pricing
What a new license costs.
A separate license for a later sale, a new owner, a different agent or brokerage, or a third party is priced at the then-current published rate for the equivalent service, as if newly produced. Discounts, credits, and promotional items from the original booking do not carry over.
In other words, the same price as if the property were being photographed fresh. There is no secondhand price, and the fact that the pictures already exist does not earn a discount for the person licensing them next.
The rates live on the pricing page, and that page is the only place we publish them, so this guide does not quote a figure that could drift out of date.
See current package ratesWhy it matters to you
Why this protects you, not just your photographer.
MLS rules put the responsibility for listing photos on the listing broker. Before a listing goes live, the broker has to own the images or have the authority to license them. The same rules keep watermarks, including a photographer's logo or copyright notice, out of the media itself. So the place your photos are most public is also the one place where the photographer's ownership is invisible, and you are the party carrying the compliance exposure, not the photographer.
That is why a clean license matters to you. When you book us, you can show exactly where your authority comes from: a paid invoice and a license that covers the listing. An agent who accepts files from an unclear source, a previous listing, a seller's phone, a reimbursed set from another agent, is the one holding the risk if the owner of those images objects.
Our rules about transfers are strict for the same reason. They keep every set of images traceable to a license, so the agent using it is always the one who holds it.
Check your own MLS's current rules for what they require of you. This page describes how Higginbotham Media licenses its own work. It is not legal advice, and the Terms of Service control if anything here reads differently.
Next step
How to request one.
- 1
Send the details
The property address, who the new license is for (you, the new owners, another agent, a builder), and the package that was originally shot if you know it.
- 2
We confirm the rate
We match the original set to the current equivalent package and send an invoice at the published rate.
- 3
A fresh gallery opens
Once the invoice is paid, the licensee gets their own gallery and their own license to market the property.
Frequently asked questions
Listing photo license questions.
Higginbotham Media retains copyright ownership of the photographs, video, aerial imagery, and other original media we create unless otherwise agreed in writing. Once the invoice is paid, you hold a limited, non-exclusive license to use the delivered media to market the specific property it was created for.
Yes. The license has no end date, and closing does not end it. Just Sold posts, your portfolio, listing presentations, and your own marketing all stay inside the license you already paid for.
No. Media may not be sold, sublicensed, transferred, or provided to another person or business without our written consent. Accepting a reimbursement for your fee in exchange for the files is still a transfer. Send the seller to us and they can license the set directly.
Point them to our contact page. They license the set directly from Higginbotham Media at the current rate for the equivalent package and receive a gallery of their own. Your original fee is not refunded or recovered, because it paid for a service that was delivered.
No. A change in property ownership, brokerage, listing agent, or listing agreement does not automatically transfer the media license. Whoever wants to use the photos for a later sale or rental licenses them from us directly.
No. Gallery expiration does not terminate an otherwise valid media license. The gallery is hosting, and the license is your right to use the files. Keep your own downloaded copies, since restoring a closed gallery is not guaranteed and may carry a retrieval fee.
The current published rate for the equivalent package, as if the property were being photographed fresh. Discounts, credits, or complimentary items from the original booking do not carry over. Current rates are on the pricing page.
Need a license for a listing?
Send the address and who it is for. We handle the rest.
A new owner, a new agent, or a seller going it alone can license the set directly, and you stay out of the middle.