License types
Stock photography
Royalty-free (RF)
"Free" in this context means "free of royalties (free from paying each time you use an image)". It does not mean the image is free to use without purchasing a license or that the image is in the public domain.
Pay a one-time fee to use the image multiple times for multiple purposes (with limits).
- No time limit on when the buyer can use an image.
- No one can have exclusive rights of a Royalty-free image (the photographer can sell the image as many times as he wants).
- A Royalty-free image usually has a limit to how many times the buyer can reproduce it. For example, a license might allow the buyer to print 500,000 brochures with the purchased image. The amount of copies made is called the print run. Above that print run the buyer is required to pay a fee per brochure, usually 1 to 3 cents. Magazines with a large print run cannot use a standard Royalty-free license and therefore they either purchase images with a Rights-managed license or have in-house photographers.
Rights-managed (RM)
- The buyer must pay each time he uses the image.
- There is a time limit on how long a buyer has exclusive use of an image (usually one year). This allows the photographer to sell exclusive rights to the image again when the first buyer's time limit is up.
- The buyer must choose a Rights-managed license if the buyer wants exclusive use of an image. The photographer would not be allowed to sell the image to anyone else if exclusivity is part of the license. Not all Rights-managed licenses are exclusive, that must be stipulated in the agreement.
- Fee is based on such things as exclusivity, distribution, length of time used, geographic location of use.
- A Rights-managed image usually allows a much larger print run per image than a Royalty-free license.
- Editorial is a form of rights-managed license when there are no releases for the subjects. Since there are no releases the images cannot be used for advertising or to depict controversial subjects, only for news or educational purposes.
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