You get full use of the images to market the listing (or your agency), but technically, UdarPhoto “owns” the images,
By law, every photograph is protected by copyright from the instant it is taken, and the photographer owns that copyright unless the rights are transferred to another party by contract. That means the photographer controls how the images can be used. Usage is controlled by the terms of a license granted by the copyright owner to someone wanting to use the copyrighted work for a specific and limited purpose.
The license you will get from UdarPhoto is very broad. You can put the images on your web site, submit them to MLS, post them to social media, print flyers and sales sheets, and pretty much anything else you might want to do to promote the listing, yourself, or your agency. About the only thing you aren’t allowed to do is sell or transfer the images to someone else. For example, if a homeowner decides to switch agents, you’re not allowed to forward the images we took to the new agent. It would be a copyright violation for the new agent to use those images. The new agent must get their own photography done, or contact us to purchase their own license to use our images. (Usage by other agents within your agency/team is allowed.)
The standard term of the license is for the time that the property is listed for sale, which is normally a matter of weeks or months. If you need to market a property for a longer period (i.e. Airbnb, Vrbo, model homes, rental property), you can extend the license term by paying a modest fee.
Note: I’ve heard that MLS and some other online sites may claim that, by submitting images to their site, you are giving them the copyright. According to sources that I believe are trustworthy, that claim has been deemed invalid. What they are entitled to is a limited license to display the images while the property is listed for sale, and our license to you specifically allows that.
UdarPhoto does reserve the right to use the images ourselves and to license them to others. For example, some of the images might find their way into our portfolio, and we might sell a license to the interior designer who decorated the home.
If you require outright ownership of the images, we can arrange a copyright buyout for an appropriate additional fee.