How do I go about licensing a character I have from my children’s picture to larger product companies?
Replies5
- @Kenny Vaughan this was very in-depth and insightful! Many thanks for this - especially the buyout terms in certain contracts... very grateful.
- If you have a character idea that you own (that is trademarked), you can speak to the company direct and see how they wish to use the character/ image, or even pitch to them how they can use it. I'd always prefer the latter by approaching them with ideas as to inspire its use. There isn't a formal way to do that as that is purely creative, but direct messaging and usin a small PDF pitch document with a bit of evidence how characters will bolster their sales/brand image, you should be in a good place for consideration.If they wish to use it, you want to define how that usage looks. They will likely issue you an offer with a number of conditions of its use. Examples are:- Period of time (term - how long they want to use this character for)- How many units they wish to add this character/image to (and you can choose to limit that - if you get paid per use, you earn a royalty and I'd say that is always better because it is scalable)- Where they want to use the character/image digitally (and you can ask for the average footfall for every campaign to get a better idea of it's reach)Then you can consider the value of the agreement based on this data. It's likely they will issue you an offer, but please ensure this is a 'license' and not a 'buyout' - you don't want to give away the rights to that forever, especially if you plan to license it to multiple people for use!If this is a character you are happy to give to just one company and you have no plans to use this again in the future, then you can agree a 'buyout' agreement and they can own the copyright and use it forever. I'd be weary that if you don't retain a 'royalty' per it's use, and this ends up being used on millions of products and placements, but the buyout agremeent was just for a set bit of cash, you could have missed a trick for scalable income.Hopefully the above helps!
- Im assuming that now protected you would need to approach companies or get an agent?
- Hi Sean,There is already a trademark put in place, I would however like to license it to a larger company to use on their products furthering my brand. Any ideas?
- Trademarking with the IPO?
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