Royalty Free refers to a type of license which is utilised by stock photography for selling stock images. Buyers are granted a determined set of rights by this license type for using the image in a variety of ways in exchange of a flat one-time fee. Thus, you need to pay for the license just once following which these photos can be used by you forever within the accepted ways without making you liable to further payment obligations.
Common Features Of Royalty Free Images
- Only the buyer is entitled to the license and it cannot be shared, resold or gifted to anybody else. Thus, nobody can derive the legal permission of using this image apart from the person who paid for the license.
- Once a license is purchased, the royalty free photos can be used in accordance with your discretion. Usually a royalty free image does not come with any time limit unless the same is specified by the agency licensing it.
- Any royalty free picture can be utilised by ‘n’ number of people who acquire a license for using the same. Thus, they are not licensed exclusively to any particular buyer. You might require a different license type if you wish to benefit out of exclusive stock photo rights.
- The royalty free images can be used without any geographic limitation unless it has been specified by the agency licensing the same.
- Royalty free images having multiple distribution methods can have both digital and physical uses.
Sources Of Royalty Free Images
- StockPhotoSecrets Shop – This can surely be termed as one of the best options for purchasing affordable royalty free photos with more than 4 million curated stock photos stored in its library. Its flexible annual subscriptions scheme tailored for small-to-medium sized businesses, extra image packs, great deals in monthly plans and extended licenses have made it the perfect place to avail cheap stock photos.
- Shutterstock – This agency has benefitted out of tremendous growth over the past few years and presently offers a mind-boggling choice of more than 190 million royalty free pictures, illustrations and vectors with 800000 new photos being added on a daily basis.
- iStock – This micro stock company owned by Getty Images offers a huge variety of budget images from its extensive collection of high end photos which are exclusive to their company. You can use credits to purchase on demand or hire a subscription.
- Adobe Stock – This stock photo service brings together a stock photo collection in the Creative Cloud of Adobe for easing out the design process inclusive of stock images. Royalty free pictures are sold by them under an array of subscription plans.
- Getty Images – This renowned stock photo agency offers a diverse collection of royalty free images to suffice your commercial requirements.
- royalty free photos – A great collection of royalty free photos are offered by this website at a simple and flexible pricing. Image packs can be availed on subscription and demand options.
The agency takes the final call of deciding upon the price of these royalty free pictures but generally they come much cheaper when compared to other license types such as Rights Managed (RM). The very nature of royalty free images is the main reason behind this since the license fee has to be paid just once with no further payment obligations. The business model of the agency also has a big role to play in determining the final price. Traditional stock company Getty Images for example charges a flat fee for selling royalty free images starting from a range of $125 and increasing with image resolution. Microstock on the other hand offers individual royalty free images between $1 to $15 depending upon the type and resolution of images.