Licensing a design for software

Traditionally I price a project based on it's usage not a license. If I were to design a project which would have many iterations over a span of products, then my pricing would reflect that usage as well as the time needed to actually complete the design. Art, in general, is priced for usage and not licensing. At least that's my experience.

It's fairly easy to track usage, while keeping track of who purchased what for how long and when that expires can be quite a chore. Not to mention what happens when the license expires, as Andrew commented. With usage rights, you can clearly see when something is outside the scope of permitted use, then call the legal team.

So I price project fee + unlimited usage for XXXX. Not for a license.

Trying to keep track of license periods and expirations is simply too difficult for me on a regular bases. In addition, if a client cares about design, they won't use the same design for more than a few years before it's revamped to a more updated appearance. So you'd be chasing your tail most of the time.

That being posted, back-end web structures and software are much easier to license since you can code in an expiration date and then cause things to stop functioning. You can't do that with design though. At least I've never found a solid, reliable way to make an image just stop working after a given date. :)