Licensing Fee

You want to use that thing? Then you pay a license fee. We won't sell it to you, but you can rent it for a specific purpose. And for a specific duration. But that's it.

The most famous example of licensing fees? Movie theaters. They don't produce movies; that was made illegal in the 1960s. Instead, theaters (a.k.a. exhibitors) license movies from producers at some set rate. There's a minimum guarantee and some split...like, the first week, the producer keeps 70% of total box office sales, the second week, the producer keeps 60%, and any week thereafter, they keep half. Something like that. (Exhibitors make most of their margin on popcorn sales, so the movies are there just to bring hungry, horny teens into the theater.)

The key element in licensing in general is that the person or thing using it doesn't own it; they are only renting its use for some time period. And then that right just vanishes. Like the villain in a superhero movie.

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