>Photographers get paid $1000+ and keep the copyright. Almost every other work-for-hire intellectual job involves an IP transfer.
That probably means the wedding photography business is not actually sustainable at $1,000 per engagement (no pun intended). They probably need to make (example) $1,500 per engagement to make it worth their time, but the industry has consolidated around a "standard" of lower foot in the door costs where they make up the additional money required on the back-end via licensing the IP.
One could create a photography business where there is a one time cost of $1,500 and the customer retains all IP rights, but customers probably just (ignorantly) view you as 50% more expensive than the "exact same service" sans IP rights.
The other thing to keep in mind, is by breaking out costs associated with IP ownership, the service isn't just hiding total up-front cost, they are also offloading some of the burden of cost from the purchasing decision maker (ie bride/groom) to the wedding guests.
I have no idea if the above is correct, but wedding photography is a commoditized service so odds are there's a reason it's standardized this way.
That probably means the wedding photography business is not actually sustainable at $1,000 per engagement (no pun intended). They probably need to make (example) $1,500 per engagement to make it worth their time, but the industry has consolidated around a "standard" of lower foot in the door costs where they make up the additional money required on the back-end via licensing the IP.
One could create a photography business where there is a one time cost of $1,500 and the customer retains all IP rights, but customers probably just (ignorantly) view you as 50% more expensive than the "exact same service" sans IP rights.
The other thing to keep in mind, is by breaking out costs associated with IP ownership, the service isn't just hiding total up-front cost, they are also offloading some of the burden of cost from the purchasing decision maker (ie bride/groom) to the wedding guests.
I have no idea if the above is correct, but wedding photography is a commoditized service so odds are there's a reason it's standardized this way.