Photography-Rights Managed Vs. Royalty Free

by Robert J. Pennington

Royalty-free pricing is based solely on the size (DPI) of the image you need, not the use. Once you purchase a royalty-free product, generally you may use it multiple times for multiple projects without paying additional fees. The downside of a royalty-free image is that there are no restrictions on its sale to others, so royalty-free images run the risk of being saturated in the marketplace.

Rights-managed products are images that are licensed for a fee based on how and where an image is used. Fees are calculated using several factors including, print run, size, placement, duration of use, and geographic distribution. When you license a rights-managed image, you retain the exclusive right to use that image within your industry for the duration of your license. In other words, if you are a health care provider and purchase a rights-managed image for use on your website, brochure, and advertising materials, the chances of that image showing up in a competitor’s collateral is very slim.

An image is either royalty-free or rights-managed. The same image cannot be both. In all cases, the photographer retains the copyright to the image. In very rare circumstances – and for a lot of money – a photographer will sell the copyright to an individual image, but the decision to do so is the sole right of the photographer, not the company licensing the image.

Dover Publications offers books of clip art that are scanable art and are available for any and all use for the purchase price of book.

For more information on licensing images, please visit: asmp.org

Category: Photography