Photo Rights & Licensing
What you can do
with your photos.
Every Villa Views shoot comes with a license. Here is what it covers, in plain English, so nobody has to guess six months from now. The full license text is at the bottom of this page.
The short version
You license the photos.
You do not buy them.
This is how professional photography works everywhere, and it is worth understanding once rather than discovering it during a dispute. Villa Views keeps the copyright to every image, video, tour, and floor plan I produce. What you buy is the right to use that work to market a specific property, for as long as you represent it.
That license is worldwide and fully paid. There are no usage caps, no per-platform fees, and no renewals while the listing is yours. Put the photos on the MLS, your website, social, print, email, wherever the listing needs to appear.
The details
Four things agents
actually ask.
How long can I use them?
For as long as you represent the property. A week, a year, however long the listing runs. The license is tied to your representation, not to a calendar date, so there is nothing to track and nothing to renew.
When you stop representing the property, the license ends with it.
The listing expired and another agent took it over. Can they use my photos?
Not automatically. The license belongs to the agent who ordered the shoot. It does not travel with the property, and it is not something the seller can hand to someone else.
The incoming agent can license the existing media directly from me. The fee is comparable to what a fresh shoot of that property would cost, and the practical advantage is speed: once the invoice is paid I hand the files over immediately, so the listing goes back up the same day instead of waiting on a reshoot and a weather window.
Can my brokerage use them?
Yes. Your brokerage can use the media to market that property while you represent it, under your license. The license covers the one property it was shot for.
Can I edit them, or run them through an AI tool?
No. The delivered files are not to be modified. That specifically includes virtual staging, twilight conversion, sky swaps, property line and GIS overlays, and AI editing or enhancement.
This is not me being precious about it. Those edits carry real MLS and disclosure risk when they are done badly, and the work still carries my name. I offer every one of them as a service, so if a listing needs virtual staging or a twilight exterior, order it and I will produce it properly.
Short-term rentals & commercial
Airbnb and VRBO are
a separate license.
A standard listing license covers marketing a property for sale. It does not cover using the photos to run a business on the property afterward.
If the property will be listed on Airbnb, VRBO, Furnished Finder, or used in ongoing commercial marketing, that is a separate commercial license: a one-time $200 flat fee, no revenue percentage and no annual renewal. It is its own product, not an upgrade to the standard license, and it can be added to an existing shoot after the fact.
Interior design & trade work
Design work is licensed
the day you pay for it.
Everything above is written for a listing, where the photos have a job that ends when the house sells. Portfolio work for interior designers, stagers, builders and the finishing trades is the opposite: those images go on your site, into your social feeds, onto a vendor's page and into next year's pitch deck, and they need to keep working for years.
So interior design photography is licensed differently, and more simply. The marketing license is included in the $80 per-image price. There is no separate license fee, no renewal, no expiration and no percentage of anything. It covers unrestricted continued marketing use by you, and it also covers the trades and vendors who worked on the project, so your cabinet maker and your tile installer can use the same images without a second conversation with me.
Two boundaries. A national brand or manufacturer wanting the images for a paid advertising campaign is a different scale of use and a separate conversation. And if the property owner later wants the photos to sell or rent the home, that is a listing or short-term rental license in its own right, handled directly with me rather than through you.
The full license
The exact text you accept
at download.
Everything above is a plain-English summary. This is the operative license, reproduced word for word from the acknowledgement in your client portal, which must be accepted before any files can be downloaded.
License for Use of Photography
[Client], who purchased a license for these photos, is hereby authorized to a worldwide, limited, fully-paid license to use said photographs and media for the purposes of marketing [FullAddress] for as long as [Client] represents the property. This license does not grant or constitute a transfer of ownership of any intellectual property rights, which are all explicitly held by [TeamMember]. Editing or modifying the photos is strictly prohibited. This includes but is not limited to: Virtual Staging, Twilight Conversion, Sky Swaps, Property Lines (GIS) and Ai editing.
Bracketed fields are filled in automatically with your name, the property address, and the photographer. If you have a question about what your license covers on a specific listing, get in touch before you use the files rather than after.
Common questions
Questions I get
about this.
Villa Views retains all intellectual property rights in the photographs and media I produce. What you purchase is a license to use them, not ownership of them. This is standard across professional photography and it is stated explicitly in the license you accept before downloading.
For as long as you represent the property. Whether that is one week or one year, the license runs for the duration of your representation. Once the property is no longer yours to market, the license ends.
Not automatically. The license is tied to the agent who ordered the shoot and does not transfer with the property. An incoming agent can license the existing media directly from Villa Views, and I deliver it immediately once the invoice is paid - no waiting for a reshoot.
Yes. The listing brokerage may use the media to market that property while you represent it, under your license. The license covers that property only.
No. Editing or modifying the delivered files is prohibited. That specifically includes virtual staging, twilight conversion, sky swaps, property line and GIS overlays, and AI editing. Villa Views offers all of these as services, so if you need them, order them and I will produce them properly.
Not under a standard listing license. Short-term rental and commercial use is a separate commercial license, a one-time $200 flat fee. It is its own product rather than an upgrade to the standard license.
Yes, and it is already inside the price. Design work is $80 per finished image, and every image includes a one-time unrestricted marketing license for you and your project trades, with no separate fee, no renewals and no expiration. The only uses it does not cover are a national brand paying to run the images in an ad campaign, and the property owner using them to sell or rent the home, which is a separate listing or rental license.