License

Rights Managed (RM) License

In a rights managed license the buyer needs to define exactly where the image will be used, this includes the number of copies printed or length of time the image will be in use, size of image and industry it will be used in. Because every image use is accounted for this allows for the buyer to exclusively license the image for use in their industry hence meaning that a competitor will not be able to license the same image (this sometimes becomes a problem with royalty free where anyone can download and use and image) RM licenses are very restrictive and you need to re-license the image to use it again in a different medium. They are usually the most expensive option too, although prices can be cheaper when comparing certain usages with full priced royalty free). Look to Rights managed agencies for specialist images and those with very high production values (i.e. hard to setup)

Editorial Use License

Images which feature logos, brands, recognisable products, events or celebrities are licensed as editorial use meaning they can only be used as part of newsworthy stories. Editorial images cannot be used in any form of advertising or commercial application.

Royalty Free License (RF)

Royalty free has become the default license type of selling stock images. It allows flexibility to the designer in that an image only needs to be purchased once for use in unlimited applications. There are however some license limitations, you can usually print up to 1/2 million copies of the image in a publication but you cannot create a derivative products using the image (one where the image forms a part of the products reason for existence e.g. a poster, calendar or t-shirt) for that you need an extended license. Allmicrostock images are licensed as royalty free, there are also a lot of full priced or macrostock agencies

Royalty Free Extended License

An extended license extends the terms of a standard royalty free license so that an image can be used in derivative products (e.g. mugs, t-shits, website templates) there are usually limits on the number of products that can be produced/sold. It sometimes works out cheaper to license an RM image for such usage, but microstock agencies generally offer a cheaper option for low volume use.

Creative Commons License

Creative commons licenses are a series of license types that were setup by a non profit organization to help photographers easily license their work. Creative commons licenses allow photographers to protect their work in simple to understand terms while still providing it for use free of charge to image users. Creative commons license always require an attribution (a credit to the image creator) and in a lot of cases require that derivative work be ‘shared alike’, images are often not available for commercial use. More about creative commons licenses. Also see CC Zero, a license type that dedicated images to the public domain.

Public Domain

This is usually an absence of a license agreement, the image creator has placed their work into the ‘public domain’ for use by anyone in whatever way they like.

Exclusive and non-exclusive

Exclusivity or non-exclusivity are not license types. Rather they are further conditions qualifying a particular license that you may want to grant to a buyer.

If you grant exclusivity to an image, that means that during the period that exclusive rights are granted, you agree that rights to use that image will not be sold to anyone else. Exclusivity is fairly rare, but when it does come along, usually the buyer believes your image is exactly right and he or she wants that image exclusively representing his or her brand. This usually means that you can charge a lot for the image.

While exclusivity can be common for corporate advertising campaigns, it can also be common in the editorial market, particularly in the tabloids and rags where exclusivity to photos of royalty or movie stars are fought over. This is the bread and butter of the paparazzi.

Exclusivity is usually limited by time and territory, and it may also be limited by industry. So a particular advertiser on behalf of her client may purchase an image for exclusive use for 3 years for the banking industry in Brazil. If exclusivity is not limited in this way, you have essentially sold copyright to the image. This is not unheard of, and as the copyright holder you have the right to do that. You should only do it, however, at a price that will more than cover the likely return you may make on the image during the period of time that you are the copyright holder.

Only Rights Managed images can be made available for exclusive licensing. By the nature of the license, Royalty Free images are non-exclusive, simply because once an image is sold to a single client, the license does not allow the copyright holder to control that client’s ongoing use of the image.

In the stock photography industry, most image sales tend to be on a non-exclusive basis. Commissioned photography, however, tends to demand exclusivity for the commissioning client for at least a period of time, allowing the client to gain a return on their investment in the commission. This will often be an unspoken expectation by a client and so understanding the nuances of exclusivity and non-exclusivity is vital to negotiating the pitfalls inherent in the industry.

GNU Public License

Typically a software license, the GNU Public License (GPL) is frequently used to license photographs on the web – particularly at Wikipedia. This license is long – read it here – but for the most part what it means is easy to understand: you can use and even alter this picture as you see fit, provided you release your work under the same terms and include mention of its license.

This means most GPL pictures aren’t useful for larger corporate blogs but just might work perfectly for some. As always, make sure you have a clear understanding of the license’s implications before you use a photo licensed using it.