The Royalty Free Stock Photography Model - The Business of Photography by Brad Rickerby

Joy at licensing at photo.

The Royalty Free (RF) stock photography license is much simpler than the Rights Managed license.  Under the Royalty Free model, when your image is licensed (as a reminder, we never, ever, sell our image, we just license the right to use them) the person who purchases the license can use that image anywhere they like, as often as they like, for as long as they like and in any quantity they like (just about).

In short, they can do virtually anything they want with your image, with just a couple of exceptions.

First, if the image is to be used on a product such as a t-shirt, coffee mug or something similar, they must purchase an "Extended License". The extended license is generally not much more expensive than the normal license.

Second, there are sometime, by some agents, a restriction on the maximum times a licensed image may be used. Different agents again set that upward limit at different numbers. istockphoto for example, allows for 499,999 impressions under a standard license and requires an extended license for higher numbers of impressions or for print runs of more than 500,000.

These limits are so high as to be of no concern to most of us. And again, if the buyer wants to use your image more than, in this case, 500,000 times, they can just pay a couple of dollars more.

One of my best selling microstock photos.

You would think that, given the virtually unfettered ability of the license purchaser to use your image, that a RF license would be more expensive than the previously discussed RM license. The exact opposite is, the case. RF licenses are, in theory, less expensive to purchase than are RM licenses. The cause of this pricing oddity has much to do with stock photo economics. (I will cover this topic more in another post).

The cost of an RF license can run from less than $1 USD to roughly $500 USD, depending on the image size licensed and the pricing model used by the agency. In my experience, RF licenses for more than $100 USD are extremely rare.

The lower price of the RF license would seem to make it a poorer revenue generator than its pricier cousin, the RM license. However, in theory, the lower your price point, the greater will be your sales volume. Increased sales should make up for the lower RF price point, at least against your average RM sale.

Another best selling microstock image.

There are two types of Royalty Free agencies. The first is the traditional stock agent who was forced to offer a RF license on some of its images in order to remain competitive. The second is the micro-stock agency. The microstock agency did great damage to the field of stock photography, but was inevitable given technology and the way images are used. And despite the fact that the microstock is evil, it may very well be the best way for you to make some of your money on some of your images.

I will talk about microstock pricing in my next blog post. Following that, I will discuss the actual agencies that exist for you to work with and then write about how to maximize your revenue by mixing your contributions to the various types of agencies.

And lastly, for the sake of transparency, the link to istockphoto above is an affiliate link that I will earn revenue from if you click through on it and then sign up with istockphoto. This all happens with no cost to you.