Licence

A licence lets someone use work they do not own. It is the usual shape for photography, illustration, music and reusable code, where the maker wants to keep the rights and grant a defined use — for example web, print, or one campaign. The client gets permission. The maker keeps the copyright.

Licences commonly set the territory, the time period, whether the use is exclusive, and whether the work can be edited or sublicensed. A narrow licence is cheaper to give; a wide one is closer to an assignment in practice. “Worldwide, in perpetuity, exclusive, all media” is a sentence to read slowly.

Pre-existing materials are often licensed even when the new work is assigned. The client can use those materials as part of the deliverables, but they do not own the library they came from. That split is how a developer can assign a custom page and still reuse a cart component next month.

A licence can end. Assignments usually do not. If the client stops paying, a licence that is tied to payment can be suspended. An assignment that has already completed is harder to unwind, which is one reason freelancers prefer assignment on payment or a licence until the invoice is cleared. Write the suspend-for-non-payment line while you still remember it.

Agencies that sublicense a photographer’s work to a brand need the photographer’s paper to allow that. If the licence is “client website only”, the agency cannot drop the image into the brand’s paid social without a wider grant. Write the end client’s name if they are allowed to use the files, and write “agency internal use only” if they are not.