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As the stock photography industry evolves, when it comes to photo licensing, more and more options are available both for the photographer and for the photo buyer. It is very important to understand the difference between the different types of image licensing options. Before deciding what type of license to choose for selling your photographs, consider your image quality and the way you want it to be used. There are differences in quality and content for each type of license. Read this article to find out more about the main types of licenses used in stock photography. Royalty free
Royalty Free stock photography gives the image buyer the option to use the image in as many ways as desired while only paying one fee. License pricing are generally lower with Royalty Free. This license is cost effective because the buyer is choosing not to protect against competitive usage. The images are easy to use because the buyer doesn't need to determine or track usage and is free to use in the images in multiple ways. Of course, there are also disadvantages. For the buyer, there is no protection against conflicting use by competitors and photographs offered in the Royalty Free domain are generally of lower content quality. For the photographer, the income for Royalty Free images is usually small for individual images. But usually images under this license are sold many times, so the total income can be satisfactory. Rights Protected
Rights Protected license prices are generally higher then Royalty Free. In this case the buyer has control of the license and there is protection against having the photo used by a direct competitor for a competing use. Records of every use of a photo or image are kept to avoid conflicting rights between competing end users. Usually, images tend to be higher quality in content and subject matter for Rights Protected license. Rights protected images are licensed for a specific period of time and for a specific application which is negotiated in advance. The reason one would use rights protected imagery is to prevent competitors from using the same image in the same marketplace. Only after the prescribed period has elapsed is the image free to be licensed for another application. This is the "traditional" licensing model and it has been around for a long time, so a big part of stock photography business is found in this area. Rights protection can be an advantage for high-profile projects such as ad campaigns and promotions. Because of their advantages, Rights Protected photographs are more expensive (sometimes much more expensive). Also the purchasing process takes more time because determining the final price requires the use of a calculation tool, or custom pricing if needed. When the term of the license expires - renewal repeats this process. So it seems that Rights Protected licensing is the best choice for projects that require high quality photography and when it could be negatively affected by a competitor using the same photo. Rights Managed
Rights Managed is a license type similar to Rights Protected but does not guarantee exclusiveness unless an additional fee is paid. Usually, license prices with Rights Managed are somewhere in between Rights Managed and Royalty Free. Rights Managed means that the buyer pays for a license to use the stock photo for a specific use for a defined time period. Usually, the licensing is not transferable. They are only granted to the person or company who purchased them. The buyer may not sell, rent, loan, give, sub-license, or otherwise transfer the photograph or the right to reproduce the photo to someone else. Advantages and Disadvantages
Before deciding what type of image licensing to choose for selling your photos, consider your image characteristics. If the image can be used for multiple applications for a local market rather than national or international one, you should consider royalty free license. Another factor is price. You can sell a royalty free CD-ROM as little as $30 or as high as $300 or you can sell a single image for $1 or for $50. The advantage of choosing royalty free license for your photos is that they are sold often and the total price can be significant. A disadvantage is that the image can be used multiple times by the buyer with different usage. The main advantage of selling rights protected imagery is the price, which is higher than royalty free but sells are rather rare. There are also different variations of these types of photo licensing. Each stock agency now has own variations of the main licenses. Under this licenses photographers can sell images for different prices depending on the license terms. To find out more about this photo licenses, read carefully the information provided by each stock photography agency on its website. |
