Fashion, real estate and automobiles—underneath
it all—are very utilitarian. Each serves a purpose:
to clothe, to shelter, to move us. Stock photography,
too, is utilitarian, serving a specific function for a
project. But like a gorgeous gown or sharp tuxedo,
imagery can help you make a statement.
DEFINING FACTORS
Rights-managed images are rented for a specific purpose
at a specific price. Once you negotiate a fee with
the agency (or photographer) for the specific use you
have in mind, any other use is subject to an additional
fee. This provides you with exclusivity to the
image for the period of time and region negotiated.
On the other hand, royalty-free images are purchased
outright—either as single images, in bulk on
disc volumes or via a royalty-free subscription—and
can be used any way you want—with certain restrictions.
The same royalty-free image can be purchased
by anyone, including a competitor or your most diabolical
archrival!
You should consider the following factors when
deciding whether to purchase a rights-managed or
royalty-free image:
1. Pricing
2. Competing usage
3. Pool of images
4. The hassle factor
1. Pricing
Does your budget let you roll to the ball in a Rolls
Royce, or do you only have the dough for a 3 Series
Beemer? Both are nice rides, get you where you want
to go and do it in style. The same can be said for
stock photography. The price for a rights-managed
image is determined by the usage negotiated, while a
royalty-free image’s price is usually set by file size—
regardless of end use—and typically tends to be only
a few hundred dollars compared to a few thousand
for a rights-managed image.
Rights-managed
Boy in barber chair,
image 23963880,
Loyall Sewall/
Nonstock, www.jupiter
images.com
Prices for rights-managed
imagery
are negotiated based
on the exclusivity and
usage sought for the
desired image.
2. Competing usage
The driving factor in pursuing a royalty-free or
rights-managed image may be price, but typically
the reason for paying more for a rights-managed
image will be exclusivity. Does it matter if someone
else uses the exact same photo? With the plethora of
images available online, the likelihood lessens that someone else will use the same image in a similar
region or design … though it does occur. The trend
seems to be to combine both types of images, with
major images in a design being rights managed and
lesser, background images being royalty free. This
saves costs and yet retains some image exclusivity.
3. Pool of images
Purchasing rights-managed imagery—negotiating
price and usage—was the traditional way to buy
images. The vast majority of images created and
sold are termed rights-managed. The royalty-free
model of buying imagery is newer, and thus the
number of available images is lower, but growing
quickly. You can now buy both rights-managed and
royalty-free imagery online. And savvy marketers of
royalty-free images are selling collections of these
images on discs, via online subscription models and
new micro-payment sites that allow you to purchase
images for only a few dollars each.
Royalty-free
Beautiful girl in white,
image 2500731,
Patricia Malina, www.shutterstock.com
Royalty-free images
can be purchased outright,
either as a single
image, in bulk on disc
volumes or via a royalty-
free subscription.
They can be used any
way you want, for a
relatively low cost, but
offer no exclusivity.
4. The hassle factor
Negotiating the cost of a rights-managed image
is definitely more work than buying a prepriced royalty-free image. You also must negotiate in
what ways the rights-managed image will be used,
for how long and in what markets. If any of that
changes, you have to go back and renegotiate the
terms of usage, in addition to the existing back-andforth
of running the images and cost by your client.
This is simplifying the process, but it’s easy to
see how showing comps, getting client approval and
buying a royalty-free image at the resolution you
need for a preset price would require fewer steps
(most times).
BUYING TIME
Does the additional hassle and cost outweigh exclusivity?
Will the project lose credibility if the same
image appears in a different project in the same
market? Does only one option have the image you
need? These are all questions you must ask yourself
before deciding whether to go with a rights-managed
or royalty-free image. And sometimes, it’s best to use
both to make sure you get the desired result.
Micro-payment
Dog, image 52955,
Lily Rosen/Israel,
www.stockxpert.com
Micro-payment sites
such as StockXpert.
com and iStockPhoto.
com offer royalty-free
images at print resolution
for as little as $25
each. These sites are
royalty-free microstock
photography
communities where
photographers and
digital artists can buy
and sell affordable,
high-quality stock
images.
For an expanded version of this adapted article,
visit www.dynamicgraphics.com/stockphotofaq.
