1. Introduction to Royalty Free Images
The past couple of years a lot has changed in the stock photo industry.
The introduction of digital photography and the expanse of the internet, made it possible that micro payment stocksites like iStockphoto, Shutterstock, Dreamstime, Fotolia and BigStockPhoto (to name the five largest to date) became very popular with, in the first place photographers but also with the designers needing cheap stock images. Along with those sites the royalty free principal was introduced.
Other than the traditional rights managed stock images, royalty free images are mostly much cheaper (around $1 for one image !!), easier to obtain and most importantly they can, in most cases, be used more than once without having to purchase a additional license.
1.1 The standard license
Underneath I list some uses which are generally permitted or not under a royalty free license. These conditions can vary from site to site. So I strongly recommend to read the "terms of use" of the site before you use any image from it.
| Generally permitted uses |
Generally prohibited uses |
| |
Prints, posters for your personal use |
On items for resale of any kind
(greeting cards, web-templates, ...)
|
|
| |
Use in advertising or
promotional products
|
Use in pornographic, or any other
offensive, content
|
|
| |
In books, magazines, newspapers, ... |
In SPAM emails |
|
| |
On websites, Newsletters, |
Place the content on shared servers |
|
1.2. Which are the largest sites ?
1.2.1. Compared by traffic
We do this by use of Alexa.com. It's clearly that iStockphoto is the most busiest site. Shutterstock and Dreamstime are battleling for n° 2 and 3. Finally Fotolia and BigStockPhoto are making the top 5 complete.
note : this graph doesn't always should up properly. This is something beyond my power. If you want you can
Click here to see that graph directly from Alexa's site
1.2.2. Compared by number of images online
In the table underneath you'll see the result of a little survey across the different sites. Mind that the actual number isn't that important. Diversity and quality are more important imho. But that is difficult to measure that.
(numbers as of date : August 2007)
| Site |
Images Online |
diversity |
 |
2.000.000 |
 |
 |
2.200.000 |
|
 |
1.600.000 |
|
 |
2.200.000 |
|
 |
1.350.000 |
|
|
|
|
