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What Does Royalty-Free Mean?
by Sharon McDonagh
Are you confused by the difference between traditional stock photography or illustration (rights-protected) and royalty-free? What exactly is "royalty-free," anyway?
Traditional stock images are not purchased outright, but "rented" for a designated price encompassing a specific use. Royalty-free images are purchased outright, and can be used multiple times in nearly limitless ways.
What Are Stock Images?
Stock images, purchased from a printed or website catalog, are
often referred to as "rights-protected" because the agency closely
guards the usage. You could initially pay to use a photo or illustration
of a woman holding a baby for the cover of an annual report for a hospital,
but if you'd like to use that same photo for a brochure to place at an
information desk, you'll have to negotiate another price with the stock
agency. The price of these "rentals" is contingent on how the
photo or illustration will be used. Costs could range anywhere from one
or two hundred dollars for use in a small locally-used brochure to thousands
and thousands for national advertising.
An advantage of procuring an image this way is that not only does the agency control the "rights," they control the usage. You'll be able to learn how the photo or illustration has been used before. You surely won't want that mother and child photo once you find out that another hospital the next city over, the one that's been in the news recently for poor patient care, made it the cornerstone of its advertising campaign.
Another advantage of traditional stock images is the sheer number of shots available — millions of photos are cataloged in collections around the world.
What Are Royalty-Free Images?
Royalty-free images are often sold as collections on CD-ROM; some companies also allow you to purchase individual royalty-free images from their website, with the cost based upon the file size and resolution: you'll pay less for a 72 dpi image to use on a website design than you will for a high-resolution photo for your four-color annual report, ready to be output by an imagesetter.
Disc collections could contain from fifty to several hundred images, with prices ranging from a low of $50, although $300 to $500 is more common. (The old adage "you get what you pay for" is particularly apt here.) If you've purchased a disc of photographs or illustrations and find a image of a woman holding a baby you'd like to use, you're free to use it for as many projects and in (almost) as many ways as you'd like — your one-time cost was the price of the CD.
The qualifiers of "nearly" and "almost" used above refer to the fact that royalty-free images are not completely and totally free, in either price and availability. It's important to carefully read the licensing agreements for the image or collection you purchase. (Yes, that means really reading all the fine print — you know, the windows you usually rapidly scroll down to get to the "I accept" button!) Generally speaking, you cannot use a royalty-free image as the main feature on a product for resale, and using the image on something widely circulated may require an additional fee as well.
As an example, you have to clear the use of that mother and baby image on a tee-shirt to be sold in the hospital gift shop, and such usage would usually require a different licensing fee beyond the cost of the collection. Note too that some companies require an additional fee or different licensing structure if an image is used on large quantities (e.g., more than 100,000) of products such as CD covers, book jackets, cassette tapes, cards, etc.
Advantages and Disadvantages
It goes without saying that if you can easily purchase a particular image,
so can your competitors and the rest of the world. If it's necessary to
the success of your project that your image be unique, then royalty-free
is not the way to go; you'll want to take a look at what stock images
can offer you, since you'll know how they've been used. With such a huge
array of stock images archived, you easily could find an excellent but
otherwise obscure photo of a mother and child and decide to make it the
central focus of your project. But if exclusivity is completely critical
to a project, you may decide that it's worth the expense of setting up
your own photo shoot, or commission an artist for a custom illustration.
The danger of seeing another project featuring the same element you've chosen is greater because there simply aren't as many royalty-free images available when compared to stock. But this is changing: royalty-free photography, illustration and clip art has noticeably increased both in quality and quantity over the past few years, no doubt due to the advent of desktop and web publishing technologies.
One benefit of royalty free images sold as a collection, beyond the scope of images and non-restrictive use, is that they are supplied on a standard CD-ROM. The CD is effectively your storage system, so you don't have to worry about clearing a large amount of disk space on your hard drive to house hefty image files. Another advantage is that quality images are pre-scanned, color corrected and with any final retouching already performed, saving you time and effort.
Choose What's Right for You —
and Know What You Can Do
You know, this doesn't have to be an either/or equation. Consider a combination
for your project: a compelling rights-protected stock for the dominant
visual, and royalty free images for elements such as backgrounds and objects.
But regardless of whether you choose traditional or
royalty-free sources, it is imperative that you be informed. Make certain
you read the fine print of all license agreements and abide by the terms.
If you're not sure how you can use an image, or where it's appeared before,
ask before you embark on your design process.