So often sellers have an emotional attachment to the property they are selling. For some it might be pride in their home improvements and design. For others it might be a property they have raised their children in over 40 years. They all want “Those beautiful pictures” for their own personal use.
Up until now we have charged to make a CD for agents to provide as a closing gift. Along with that came permission for the seller to use those images for non commercial uses. That permission was required because as per standard US copyright law the photographer always owns the copyrights to all images they take.
Our normal terms and conditions allow for all normal uses that an agent may encounter including special terms and conditions the MLS requires so they can distribute and use the images without violating any normal copyrights the photographer has. That has always required agents to ask specific permission to give the images to sellers.
We are now granting blanket permission under US copyright law for our valued agents to provide “Those beautiful images” to their valued clients, the sellers, for the sellers personal, non commercial, not for profit, use. No other RE photographers we know of formally grant this use.
The only thing we ask is that you agree that you will make it clear to the sellers this is “special copyright license permission” you have obtained from the photographer and the images are only for personal, non commercial, not for profit, use by their family.
Now the next question is “How do I do that? It’s hard to email those large files”
The answer is simple. We have already improved our distribution service by using “From Smash” That service provides you with an email notification the images are ready for download. Simply just forward that same email to your clients and let them know about the special permission. One email and it’s done. Just do this within 7 days of receiving that notification because the link is only good for 7 days.
For more about how “From Smash” works just click on this link:
We want to thank you so much for your business. We will continually strive to improve the quality of our images by improving our processes and continuing to use and update our professional grade equipment and software.
Regards
Frank Gutowski