Blogue · 26 septembre 2026 · 4 min de lecture
Real estate photos and copyright in Quebec: who owns the images of your listing?
Who owns listing photos: the broker, the seller or the photographer? What Canada's Copyright Act says, what the licence covers, and the uses to avoid.
A listing sells. Six months later, another broker puts the same property back on the market and reuses the photos. Or the seller posts them on Airbnb. Or a renovation company displays them in its portfolio. Each one thinks the photos belong to them. None of them is right.
Here is what Canadian law says, what the licence you get by ordering a session concretely covers, and the uses that cause problems.
What the law says
In Canada, the Copyright Act has been clear since 2012: the photographer is the first owner of the copyright in the photos they take, including when they are commissioned and paid for. Before 2012, a commissioned photo belonged to the client; that is no longer the case. The rule applies in Quebec as everywhere in the country, since the law is federal.
Direct consequence: paying for a photo session does not buy the photos. It buys a licence to use them, meaning the right to use them within a defined scope. It is exactly the same principle as for a typeface, a piece of music or a stock photo.
This is not a Dimension 360 peculiarity: it is how every professional photographer works, and it is what most studios' terms of service provide. Ours are public: terms and conditions.
What a real estate session's licence covers
When a broker orders a session for a listing, the licence covers the obvious use: marketing this property, by this broker, for the duration of the mandate. Concretely:
- Centris, Realtor.ca, DuProprio and the other portals
- The broker's and agency's website
- The broker's social media (posts, reels, ads)
- Printed sheets, signs, mailings
- Presentations to buyers
Everything that serves to sell this property, while it is for sale through you, is covered. You have nothing to ask.
What is not covered automatically
Reuse by another broker. If the mandate expires and another broker takes the listing, they cannot reuse your photos. They were licensed to you, for your mandate. They must order their own session, or obtain a licence from the photographer. It is the most frequent source of dispute, and it resolves simply: the new broker contacts us, and a reuse licence is offered.
Use by the seller after the sale. The seller is not the client of the session: the broker is. A seller who wants to use the photos for a rental, a personal site or an insurance claim needs a licence, generally granted without difficulty on request.
Commercial use by a third party. A renovation contractor, a designer, a kitchen manufacturer or a magazine wanting to show the property must obtain a licence. Those are commercial uses that have nothing to do with the sale.
Substantial modification. Cropping a photo for an Instagram format is normal. Removing another studio's watermark, adding elements, or altering the property (erasing a pole, adding a pool) touches the integrity of the work and, in a listing, misrepresentation. We address that question in our article on AI photo enhancement.
What the photographer can do with your photos
The counterpart of the licence is that the photographer keeps the right to use their images to promote their own work: portfolio, website, social media, contests. That is the use provided for in our terms, and it always excludes the address and the seller's name.
A seller who wishes their property to appear in no portfolio can request it at booking; it is respected systematically, and it is common on prestige properties.
The broker who changes agency
Your photos follow you. The licence is granted to the broker, not to the agency. If you change banners, your past listings remain usable in your personal broker portfolio ("my sales"), as long as you are the one who ordered the session.
"Sold" photos
Posting the photo of a sold property with "Sold in 9 days" is a promotional use by the broker, covered by the licence. Posting the same photo with the exact sale price requires the seller's consent, for confidentiality reasons rather than copyright.
Why this system protects the broker too
The broker benefits from this framework as much as the photographer. If the photos belonged to the property, any competing broker could reuse them when your mandate expires, arguing that "they go with the house". The personal licence prevents exactly that: your investment in images stays yours, and the next broker has to make their own.
In practice
- You order a session: you can use the photos to sell the property, everywhere, during your mandate, without asking anything.
- Another broker takes over the listing: they order their own session or obtain a licence.
- The seller or a third party wants the photos: they ask for a licence, generally granted.
- You want to modify a photo beyond cropping: ask first.
- You do not want the property in a portfolio: say so at booking.
These rules are detailed in our terms and conditions. This article describes the general framework of Canadian law and our practices; it does not replace legal advice for a specific situation.
A session to book? The online estimator gives the exact price, usage licence included.
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