I had an email this morning from a software company who want to use one of my images on some of their packaging. Naturally I am rather excited by this but I am wondering what I should ask for in terms of payment... I want to be fairly compensated for use of my work but at the same time I don't want to scare them off or be too greedy... advice from anyone with experience/knowledge in this area would be appreciated.

Here's a link to their site: www.codejock.com. In their email they offered to "make a donation" if I gave permission to use the image. I have already replied asking how much they plan to charge for the software and how many copies they might produce, as well as what sort of donation they had in mind and am awaiting a reply.

Well im not in the graphic design field but I do know there is lots of money in it. It does depend on the software though of course and by the sounds of it they are hoping to make off cheap with a little "donation" Id go to some place like www.Geekatplay.com and ask in the forums there. They are in the business and are very nice and im sure they would be happy to give you a ballpark figure.

I don't have experience/knowledge in this area either. However, I found a stock photo price calculator , that may be of some use to you. I also found this forum on a discussion of exclusive rights versus limiting the use of an image. Something to think about anyway. Good luck to you Sam :)

Sam - Lucky You! How much do you ask for? Before I can advise you, I need to know some information first. Does your Photo have a Registered Copyright? If it does then you can legally raise your Donation expectations. You are now offering your client an Registered item that legally can be transfered to them. Yes every Photo you take does have a Copyright, but the chances of having a Ruling Body defend and enforce your rights to the Photo are very meek. If this company wants to, they can just steal the Photo and your efforts for recovery will only bring frustration. In the US it costs $25 to Register a Photographic Copyright, and it can be done on line. The fact that this company approached you and asked for permission and mentioned a donation shows their Honesty and respect for the Artist. If you can transfer to your client Legal product rights,that means you have signed away your Copyright to your client, a donation of approx $500 US Dollars is not uncommon, depending on their use of your Art. Most Artists get Greedy and never sell anything. They seldom get contacted again. I hope I have been of some help.

Just one point: I've read books saying you should never give away your copyright. That makes sense to me; if you made something, you made it. No one else did. That tends to be the first thing I check when I'm looking at rules, terms etc.

Thanks all for the advice. I haven't heard anything back from them and don't really expect to at this stage so I guess it was a dead end.

LoDollar: I didn't actually ask them for any particular amount, rather I just asked them what they had in mind for the "donation".

Hmm never got back to you... to bad you didn't get the software name so you could make sure they did not just steal it like LoDollar said. They might have been hoping you would just be happy it was being used and you would let them use it free of charge..

'tis difficult to make a buck on teh intarwebs .. so much available, be it free, cheaper, or theft

at the first sign of you 'negotiating', they wrote you off, maybe ..

or maybe donations of the size they have in mind require coordination between many world banks, so that not just one institution feels the pinch should the bank transfer get nicked out of the ether, enroute .. by HACKZ0RZ

could be, you don't know

I half didn't expect to hear back to be honest, having had a few emails like this before. But I do know the name of the company and product so it's pretty easy to keep tabs on them and make sure they don't do anything naughty.

I've yet to recieve any offers for submitted artwork here at the Community...but if that happened, I would question exactly what the "donation" enthralled ...also if it WAS a "serious" offer, I probably would seek some legal consul before I moved ahead with anything...