3. Royalty Free & Rights Managed
When selling something you need to have a contract which covers the rights of both the seller and the buyer.
Just think about the music CD you bought or about the movie you hired. In both cases there are surely some 'Terms of Conditions' included. For example, you can listen to that CD yourself as many times you want without any extra costs but you can't broadcast, reproduce or use it in any other way without an extra license.
When selling photos you also need to state clearly where and how your image can be used to prevent that your images are used somewhere you don't want them to be used.
3.1. Rights managed
Until a few years ago, the "rights-managed-model" was the standard in the stock industry and in the whole photo industry in general.
In this 'model' the usage of a photo is very well controlled.
Items that are controlled are for instance :
- the amount of print copies
- the size of the picture
- the place on the page
- the language of the publication
- whether a pictures can be modified or not
- ...
almost everything can be determined in this model.
The price of the image is usually determined by how the image will be used.
The royalties are most of the time fairly decent.
This can vary from $10 or $20 for normal pictures with limited uses, up to a few $100 or even (much) more for extraordinary pictures.
Because of the higher royalties it is most likely that a buyer won't see anyone else using the same picture. (read between the lines : those pictures aren't that often sold). If the buyer wants complete sure no one else will use the same picture, he can buy the exclusive rights of it.
3.2. Royalty Free
Royalty Free means literally ´free of royalties´, meaning that there are no royalties to be paid anymore after the initial purchase. Thus such an image can be used many more times. This is an essential difference between RF and RM.
But it is surely not true, regardless of what is often said, that a buyer can do what he wants with a photo after he bought it under the RF principal.
3.2.1. What can and can't be done with a RF license ?
There are, of course, some restriction to a RF-license.
Although they differ from site to site, in general they are similar. Underneath you'll see an overview of what can and can't be done under such a license. But keep in mind that each site has it's specific terms of usage.
The entire licenses of some sites, you can find on the following links :
Shutterstock,
Dreamstime,
iStockphoto or
Fotolia .
What I find very important, especially for models, is that the images can't be used for pornography or in any other way which may depict the model.
Also, the image can only be used by the buyer himself. He can't share it with friend or colleagues.
Besides the standard royalty license there is also a so called "extended license" which covers some of the restriction of the standard license. I will discuss this license on the next page.
3.2.2. The price of a RF image
Because of the great supply of stockphotos nowadays the prices of RF images are low (understatement). On most sites you can buy photos ranging from $1 tot $5.
The price of a RF images mostly (but not always) depends on the size you want to download.
3.3. Related links
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