Starter Kit. Idea 391 of 500. Cluster 19
Photography archives of the island, licensed to the publishers and the film-makers
The mechanism, from the book
Eight World Heritage Sites and 2,300 years of records, and the country's story is told to the world by other people.
The first step
Collect 50 photographs of the island, your own or old prints from families, with written permission to license each one. Put them in a simple online catalogue with a price per use, and send the link to five picture editors at publishers or production companies. One licence sold is your proof, and what they search for tells you what to shoot next.
- Who pays first
- A publisher or producer who needs an authentic, properly licensed image of the island and cannot find the right one in the big stock libraries.
- What leaves today
- Images of the island are mostly licensed through foreign agencies; a local archive owns the pictures and earns every time they are used.
Ask first
- Department of Cultural Affairs. Ask whether any public photograph collections could be licensed through you.
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask which registration suits a picture licensing business.
Check before you spend
Written permission from every photographer or owner, releases from recognisable people, and that no image comes from a place where photography is restricted.
Find out these three numbers
- What do picture editors pay per use?
- What do they search for most?
- How many images does a buyer need before trusting a catalogue?
A comparison from the book
Zespri, New Zealand. Chapter Eleven
"Then Zespri did the thing that made the real money: it owns its plant varieties."
Own the rights and license each use, and one good picture earns again and again.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.