Legal

Contributor agreement

Last updated 14 August 2026 (withdrawing a submission: self-serve until we have pitched it to a newsdesk, then only removable by asking us; account deletion holds a pitched submission for 24 hours before deleting it) · England & Wales. Previously 24 July 2026 (exclusive licences now priced as their own band rather than a flat multiple of the standard price).

This agreement applies when you submit content to PressApp, and it forms part of our terms of service. By submitting content you confirm that:

You keep ownership, we get a licence

You retain copyright in everything you upload. You grant PressApp a non-exclusive, worldwide licence to review, store, crop, watermark, market, license and sub-license your content to newsdesks for editorial use, and to reproduce it in previews and on the licence certificate. We do not claim ownership of your work.

Featuring your work to promote the platform

You also grant PressApp a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to reproduce and display your submitted content, including watermarked or cropped versions, on our own marketing and social media channels (such as TikTok, Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube) to promote PressApp. When your byline is enabled we show your credit alongside the post. This does not let us resell or sub-license your content to third parties outside normal marketplace sales. If you turn your byline off, delete a submission or close your account, we will not start new promotional posts from that content, but posts we have already published to promote the platform may stay live.

Provenance and your declarations

When you upload, we read the capture time, approximate location and device details from the original file and take a checksum of the untouched bytes before any editing. This appears to buyers and on the licence certificate. When your work is delivered to a buyer, we also embed standard credit, copyright and licensing details into the file itself (IPTC and XMP for photos, file metadata for video). Your byline choice is respected: if your byline is off, the embedded credit reads simply PressApp. The confirmations above are declarations you make on every submission, and they must be true. Our editorial policy sets out the full standard.

Byline, credit and moral rights

Your username is your public byline. By default your published work is credited "Username / PressApp". You can switch your byline off in your account, and the credit then becomes simply "PressApp". Buyers are asked to publish with the credit line. This is your choice to make and you can change it at any time.

What you earn and how you are paid

You keep 70% of every sale. For card sales your share is added to your in-app wallet as the sale completes. For set licences sold on invoice terms, your share first shows in your wallet as pending, and becomes withdrawable once the newsdesk pays its invoice, normally within 14 days. You withdraw to your own bank account through Stripe Connect Express, with a £1 minimum withdrawal. Withdrawals also need an approved ID check (Account, Verify ID): your earnings build up in your wallet either way, but money cannot leave the wallet until that check clears. PressApp is not currently VAT registered. You are responsible for any tax you owe on your earnings.

Referring other photographers

If you share your personal referral code or link and another photographer joins PressApp through it, you earn 5% of every sale that photographer makes, for as long as they keep selling. This 5% is paid out of PressApp’s own fee, not from the seller’s share: the referred photographer always keeps their full 70%, whatever your referral relationship. Referral earnings are credited to your wallet the same way as your own sales, pending until the underlying sale settles, and withdraw the same way. Each account can only ever be referred once, set at signup and permanent; you cannot refer yourself. Referral earnings are separate from, and do not reduce, any of your own sales.

Setting your price

You set the asking price when you upload, and you can change it freely while your submission is pending review. Once a submission is approved and live, its price is fixed for everyone, including our own team, so newsdesks can rely on the figure they see. If a live price is genuinely wrong, withdraw the submission and resubmit it at the right price. Newsdesks can always offer above your listed price.

Licensing and exclusivity

A standard licence is non-exclusive and can sell repeatedly. An exclusive licence sells for its own higher price, shown on each listing, and locks the shot to that buyer until a release moment they choose, between 1 hour and 48 hours ahead. While an exclusive is running, you must not license, publish or otherwise share that same content anywhere else. Once the window passes the shot reopens for second rights.

Uploads and large files

You can upload photos up to 50MB and videos up to 2GB directly. For bigger files you can give us a transfer link (for example WeTransfer, Dropbox or Google Drive) and we fetch the full-quality originals from that service on your behalf; your originals are stored at full resolution and only watermarked previews are shown before a licence is bought.

Withdrawing a submission

You can withdraw a submission yourself at any time before we have offered it to a newsdesk, and its files are deleted when you do. Once we have pitched it, it can only be removed by asking us, since a newsdesk may already be relying on that offer. Once a shot or set has been licensed, including a set delivered against an unpaid invoice, it is locked to the buyer’s licence and cannot be withdrawn, because the buyer is relying on that licence.

Capture standards and the law

Only upload content you captured lawfully and safely. Do not cross cordons or enter active scenes, do not trespass, harass, stalk or intimidate, and respect people’s reasonable expectation of privacy, including in homes, hospitals, schools and shelters. Do not identify a child without a parent or guardian consenting. Our content policy has the full list.

Warranties and indemnity

You warrant that your content is original, lawful and accurate, that you were lawfully present when you captured it, that you did not trespass, intercept private communications, harass or stalk to obtain it, that you hold all rights needed to license it, and that the declarations above are true. You agree to indemnify PressApp against claims, losses and reasonable costs arising from a breach of these warranties or from content you upload that turns out to be unlawful, staged, AI-generated or infringing. This does not make you liable for our own negligence or wrongdoing.

Termination and account deletion

You can delete your account yourself from the Security tab. Deletion removes your personal data and unsold submissions immediately, except a submission we have already pitched to a newsdesk: that is held for up to 24 hours before its files are removed, so a newsdesk following our pitch isn’t left with a dead link, and is deleted automatically once that window passes. Records of completed sales are kept in anonymised form for legal and tax reasons, and the licences buyers hold remain valid. Any remaining wallet balance is forfeited if you have not withdrawn it first, so withdraw before you delete. We may also suspend or close accounts that breach this agreement.

Questions about this agreement? Email hello@pressapp.co.uk.