Licensing

A license grants a licensee the right to use your material, in a set scope and term. To issue one, open a project in Assets, choose Licensing → Issued Licenses in the sidebar, then Issue licence.

1. Pick the Licensee, or add one with their name, kind, contact and email.
2. Pick a Template, or Bespoke (no template). A template fills in the scope.
3. Give it a Licence title, and set the Usage type, Territories, Channels, Exclusivity, Duration and Start date.
4. Add what it covers: Library assets, Collections or External material held outside Assets.
5. Check the Fee, calculated from your rate card. Type a Fee override if the deal differs.
6. Choose Issue licence.

While you fill it in, the Conflict check warns about clashes with exclusive licenses already issued. Licenses also arrive from gallery sales of license products; see Store and orders.

Licensing in Assets has two sides. Rights are what you hold: material you own or licensed in, recorded in Rights Inventory. Licenses are what you grant to others, recorded in Issued Licenses. A template is a reusable starting point for a license, and the rate card on License Pricing turns a requested scope into a fee.

A license's status is Draft, Pending, Active, Expiring, Expired, Terminated or Renewed. Licenses from a template that requires approval start as Pending until someone marks them active.

Every license keeps the price breakdown it was issued with, so its fee can always be explained, even after the rate card changes.

Licensing → Rights Inventory records the rights you own or control. To add one, choose New right.

• Subject: a Library asset, or a Title and External reference for material not in the library.
• Rights holder and Acquisition: who it came from, and whether it's Owned, Licensed in, Commissioned, Public domain or Unknown, with your Ownership share (%).
• Coverage: Territories held, Channels held, Exclusivity, and a Window start and Window end (blank for no end).
• Paperwork: a Document URL and Notes, and a Status: Draft, Active, Expiring, Expired or Disputed.

Rights holders lists the people and organizations royalties are paid to. Add one with a Name, Kind, Email, Default royalty (%) and Payment terms. The figures across the top count Rights records, Windows closing within 90 days, Rights holders and Disputed records.

Licensing → License Templates keeps reusable grants. To add one, choose New template.

• Identity: Template name (required), Description and Status (Draft, Active or Archived).
• Default grant: Usage type, Exclusivity, Default territories, Default channels and Default duration. A license from the template starts with these and can change them.
• Terms: the Restrictions and the Terms body carried onto every license. The tokens {{exclusivity}}, {{usage}}, {{territories}}, {{channels}} and {{duration}} are filled in on the certificate.
• Requires approval: licenses from the template start as Pending.

Choose Create template. Duplicate & bump version in a template's menu copies it as the next version, so licenses issued from the old one keep their terms.

Licensing → License Pricing holds the rate card that prices licenses. Start with Create starter card for sensible fees and multipliers, then tune them, or add rules one by one.

• Base fee: the starting fee, globally or for one template. A template's own rule wins over the global one.
• Territory and Channel: a Multiplier for each one licensed. These compound, so each territory and channel multiplies the running total.
• Duration: a multiplier for the term, using the closest rule at or under the requested length.
• Exclusivity: a premium for exclusive or sole grants.

Any flat amounts on rules are added after the multipliers. The Quote calculator prices a requested scope and shows every factor that moved the price; Log as a quote request keeps the figure for a licensee. Quote requests move through Requested, Quoted, Accepted, Declined and Converted, with Mark accepted and Mark declined in their menu.

Click a license on Issued Licenses to open it. The figures across the top of Issued Licenses count Licences, Licence revenue, those Expiring soon (within 30 days) and Exclusive grants, and each row's menu can Mark active or Mark expired.

• Scope & terms: what the licensee may do, where and for how long, the dates and grace days, and the restrictions.
• Licensed items: the assets, collections and external material it covers. Add item adds more.
• Financials & royalties: the fee and the factors frozen in when it was issued, and the royalties owed onward from it.
• Renewals & history: Renew term, Extend grace 30 days, Mark lapsed and Terminate, each recorded in the history. Terminate happens straight away, without asking.
• Certificate: the grant as the licensee receives it. Print opens it for printing or saving as a PDF.

Auto-renew marks a license as auto-renewing on Expirations & Renewals; renewing it is still up to you.

Assets checks every license against the rest of your licensing and shows what it finds as warnings. Nothing blocks a save: you decide.

• Conflicts: the license covers the same material as another live license where either one is exclusive.
• Coverage: whether your rights back the grant. Assets warns when an item has no rights record, when its rights are expired or disputed, when the license runs past the rights window, when it grants a territory or channel you don't hold, and when it's exclusive on rights you hold non-exclusively.

Add the licensed items first, so the checks have material to compare. Live licenses are those that are Pending, Active or Expiring.

Licensing → Expirations & Renewals shows the license windows that are closing. Pick how far ahead to look (Next 30 days, Next 60 days, Next 90 days or Next 12 months), then switch between Expiring, In grace (past the end date but inside the grace days), Expired, Auto-renewing and History.

The figures across the top include the Revenue at risk in licenses about to expire and the Renewal rate of decided licenses.

Each license's menu has Renew…, Extend grace 30 days and Mark lapsed. To renew, choose the Renewal style: Extend this licence, which moves its end date, or Issue a successor licence, which keeps the original on file and links the two. Set the New term, the Renewal fee and an optional Note, then choose Renew. Every decision is listed under History.

Licensing → Revenue & Royalties shows license income and what you owe rights holders from it.

• Revenue: fees issued over the last 12 months, by usage type, territory and channel, and the biggest fees on file.
• Royalty rules: what each Rights holder earns, as a Rate (%) or a Flat per licence amount, for all license revenue or a specific asset, collection, rights record or template. The most specific matching rule wins for each holder, and a lower Priority wins ties. A rule can carry a Minimum guarantee, which is Recoupable when it's an advance to earn back.
• Accruals: royalties owed from each license fee. They're added from a license's Financials & royalties tab once a rule covers the holder.
• Statements: choose a holder and a period and Generate a statement from their open accruals, with the guarantee and recoupment applied. Then Mark issued and Mark paid.