# Talk to me about Royalty Free Non Exclusive licensing



## coastalconn

So a Flickr Curator contacted me last week and invited me into their new licensing program for basically stock photography I guess.  I think it is their version of Getty.  So today they sent me a list of about 250 images they want me to approve for the program.  I'm not sure what they use as a pricing guideline, but they give the photographer 51% of proceeds.  What are the downfalls of this type of licence? I know people have been selling stock photography for a long time.  Does this type of agreement allow a magazine to but an image for say $50 with unlimited distribution?  I am going to send them an email about the pricing structure.  What questions should I be asking?  Thanks


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## vintagesnaps

NON exclusive? Royalty free? Don't do it. I think... I'd have to go look it up to be sure but I think that's the worst option to agree to. And 51% - so they'd make almost half the profit off your work?? Your work is way too good to underprice it or let someone else make the money off your talent and effort.

I think what it means is that the purchaser could use your photos from now til forever (no time limit) as many times as they want for as many different uses as they want and only pay a one time fee. Typically photos would be licensed for a specific time period and for a specific use, and relicensed with an additional payment for further use beyond the initial contract. Which is the appropriate compensation to a photographer and apparently NOT what Flickr wants to do. But many people will unfortunately not know what or how they should be appropriately compensated, and agree to terms that seem beneficial to Flickr but NOT to the photographer.

Watch out for terminology like reuse, distribute, reproduce, etc. or anything that allows a buyer to sell to a third party or repeatedly resell your photos without any further notification or compensation to you.


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## W.Fovall

go for it if those pics are just sitting around doing nothing and your not planning on selling them yourself.... better than nothing and gets your name out there


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## tirediron

I agree with (the other) Sharon.  This sounds like a cash grab on the part of Flickr to me.  Of course it's hard to say without reading the fine-print, but yes, I suspect that it does indeed mean that a magazine (or a huge website such as McDonalds) could license your image for $50 and that's all you're going to get, irrespective of the fact that it's the landing image on a 'site that gets 10,000,000+ views a day. 

If you're seriously considering this, given the calibre of your work, I would STRONGLY recommend taking the licensing document, the Flickr EULA, and anything else to your friendly neighbourhood IP lawyer and pay him a few hundred dollars to read through it all and give you a plain, English translation of what you'd be agreeing to.



W.Fovall said:


> go for it if those pics are just sitting around doing nothing and your not planning on selling them yourself.... better than nothing and gets your name out there


I'm not so sure. First of all, what is the $50 or $100 that he's likely to get really going to do for you?  Unless you're an impoverished person living on the street, $100 is probably a meal out and a movie with your wife.  I would rather NOT get that $100 then sell an image like the sort that Coastal produces for peanuts. 

As for getting your name out there?  Nope.  Companies buying these images don't care who took them, and definitely aren't going to credit the photographer unless it's part of the license, which would drive the price down significantly.  At BEST you could hope that one or two particular users might remember you and license a few more $50 or $100 images.


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## KmH

Non-exclusive means you/the stock agency can license the same image to multiple users. (Getty has had a relationship with Flickr for several years now.)
Non-exclusive use is a way to sell 100 use licenses to the same photo instead of just 1 exclusive use license to 1 photo.

Unfortunately RF (Royalty-Free) licenses usually allow a butt-load of impressions for a minimal fee.
RF licenses are often for an unlimited amount of time.
Most RF, non-exclusive use licenses are for non-commercial use only. The stock agency sells 10's of thousands of RF use licenses, a few of which are yours.

The real money is in RM (Rights-Managed) which is usually a license for a 1 time, time limited use. RM licenses are often non-exclusive use so the same image can be licensed to other users. Consequently, exclusive use costs quite a bit more than non-exclusive use.

The stock agency gets 50% because they handle all the business aspects.
If a magazine buys a use license that costs $50, you get $25, but don't have to do any advertising or other business tasks.

Royalty-Free Images & Photos, RF Image, Picture, Illustration | Getty Images
Stock Photography, Images, Videos, and Audio Licenses - iStock


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## W.Fovall

KmH said:


> Non-exclusive means you/the stock agency can license the same image to multiple users. (Getty has had a relationship with Flickr for several years now.)
> Non-exclusive use is a way to sell 100 use licenses to the same photo instead of just 1 exclusive use license to 1 photo.
> 
> Unfortunately RF (Royalty-Free) licenses usually allow a butt-load of impressions for a minimal fee.
> RF licenses are often for an unlimited amount of time.
> Most RF, non-exclusive use licenses are for non-commercial use only. The stock agency sells 10's of thousands of RF use licenses, a few of which are yours.
> 
> The real money is in RM (Rights-Managed) which is usually a license for a 1 time, time limited use. RM licenses are often non-exclusive use so the same image can be licensed to other users.
> 
> The stock agency gets 50% because they handle all the business aspects.
> If a magazine buys a use license that costs $50, you get $25, but don't have to do any advertising or other business tasks.
> 
> Royalty-Free Images & Photos, RF Image, Picture, Illustration | Getty Images
> Stock Photography, Images, Videos, and Audio Licenses - iStock


$100 is great if the images are just doing nothing, you still get to put them on your Facebook and show them off to friends and you get a $100.... win win... unless you plan on distributing them yourself then do that and make more $$$.... personally i dont sell prints or images, i sell my time so anyone that wants to sell my photo all around town and give me a couple bucks for something thats just taking up hard drive space is welcome to it... 
$100 could get you a free 50mm f/1.8  or a nice lobster dinner... mmmmmm lobster


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## coastalconn

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.  I think I may selectively narrow down the list they sent me and only allow my non premium images to be licensed..



KmH said:


> Non-exclusive means you/the stock agency can license the same image to multiple users. (Getty has had a relationship with Flickr for several years now.)
> Non-exclusive use is a way to sell 100 use licenses to the same photo instead of just 1 exclusive use license to 1 photo.
> 
> Unfortunately RF (Royalty-Free) licenses usually allow a butt-load of impressions for a minimal fee.
> RF licenses are often for an unlimited amount of time.
> Most RF, non-exclusive use licenses are for non-commercial use only. The stock agency sells 10's of thousands of RF use licenses, a few of which are yours.
> 
> The real money is in RM (Rights-Managed) which is usually a license for a 1 time, time limited use. RM licenses are often non-exclusive use so the same image can be licensed to other users.
> 
> The stock agency gets 50% because they handle all the business aspects.
> If a magazine buys a use license that costs $50, you get $25, but don't have to do any advertising or other business tasks.
> 
> Royalty-Free Images & Photos, RF Image, Picture, Illustration | Getty Images
> Stock Photography, Images, Videos, and Audio Licenses - iStock



I think getty and flickr had a nasty divorce and Flickr is going it's own route now.  I read an article about people that had allowed free usage of there photos on flickr, and flickr turned around and started selling prints/canvases of these images.  I feel that flickr has gotten  a bit shady lately.  But if they want to sell some of my lower end work, then all the power to them...

I think the percentages seem about right because they are really doing the work for you.  If they don't sell licenses then nobody makes money...


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## vintagesnaps

'Shady'... then how can you trust them to license your photos? From what I've read I'd be reluctant to use them to license photos. Royalty free is not a good option for a photographer, rights managed seems more in line with standard practice. It's a bad idea to allow them to relicense and make more money over and over again while you'd get no further payment for extended uses.

If you want to license your work I'd do some research on how to do that in the best way possible. Get on sites like American Society of Media Photographers and get informed. This looks like an easy buck and then down the road years from now what if you see any of your photos used in a way that could have made you a profit? instead Flickr will make all the money from now til doomsday since you already got your one time payment.

And no, your name will not be used, you don't see that in ads etc. (retail /commercial use). A photo credit may be given along with a byline for a magazine or newspaper article, but I doubt that this licensing will be for such editorial use.


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## vintagesnaps

I think John's right, this seems to me like just another of many photo rights grabs out there. I imagine their 'curator' is working for the company and cruising around Flickr to find usage sellable photos that they can make money from. I don't see that they're working to help photographers license their work in a way that's at all beneficial to the photographers.

I think this type practice by many companies and websites is in part what's watering down the market and helping to bring down the value of photos - people might down the road be kicking themselves for every agreeing to something like this.


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## JacaRanda

I watched this about a month ago.  It may be worth your time and is current.

Watch the Online Video Course Photography and the Law: Understanding Copyright


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## coastalconn

JacaRanda said:


> I watched this about a month ago.  It may be worth your time and is current.
> 
> Watch the Online Video Course Photography and the Law: Understanding Copyright


Thanks JR.. I watched the first video... Good stuff about copyright...


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## KmH

If you want to look at more legal stuff about photographer, here is Carol Wright's web site:
Photo Attorney


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## coastalconn

well after much debate I decided to try the RF out.  The List was actually 320 images.  They said for now they were only interested in RF, so  I divided the images into 3 groups. 1) Images that I consider C grade.  I felt these were more generic and not my best..  These I put on the list to license..  148 Images fell into this category.  2) B grade, These are higher on my scale.. for this list I told them I would consider RF later or possibly RM now 67 images.  3) A List, this was my premium list that I would only consider a RM license.  I would only license these if there was substantial money involved.  105 images made it here.  I don't expect anything further to happen with them.  If they can sell images from my "C" grade list, I will be pretty impressed...


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## tirediron

Interesting; a well thought out compromise.  Keep us informed of how this plays out and how much revenue you bring in from it.


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## KmH

They don't 'sell'.
They just put images in their library and potential users browse the library.

Today there are far more 'users' and far fewer 'stock houses'.

Getty and Corbis bought up pretty much all of all the privately owned stock houses there were during the 1990's.
Corbis is privately owned - by Bill Gates.
Many likely don't know that Getty bought iStockphoto, a microstock agency, in 2006.
Getty was sold to Hellman & Friedman, a private equity firm, in 2008.
Getty and Flickr entered a stock photography partnership agreement in 2009.
H&F sold Getty to another private equity firm, Carlyle Group in 2012.


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## vintagesnaps

Of course they want people to license photos as royalty free, that benefits the company not the photographers. It's not fair compensation for the work. As long as people continue to use that model it keeps making it that much harder I think for photographers to license and sell their work at a fair price.


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## unpopular

ok. But for Royalty Free don't I still get paid for each time the image is used?

BTW - Getty and Flickr have parted ways.


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## coastalconn

unpopular said:


> ok. But for Royalty Free don't I still get paid for each time the image is used?
> 
> BTW - Getty and Flickr have parted ways.


It is my understanding that flickr sells the image, RF, each customer can use the image as many times as they want.  You would get paid a small commission.  When I was emailing with the curator it seemed they had no set price in mind.  So say they sell it for $50.  You would get $25 for each new customer that wanted to purchase that image.  Each customer could then use that image millions of times for as long as they want...


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## unpopular

or it could sit in my flickr account and never be used at all. seems silly to get greedy over an image that has no value...


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## KmH

Most RF licenses have a usage limit, though it may be up to 499,999 uses for the regular cost.
If a customer wants more usage the stock house usually offers an extended RF license and the customer pays some amount more.


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## W.Y.Photo

unpopular said:


> or it could sit in my flickr account and never be used at all. seems silly to get greedy over an image that has no value...



Not when the potential value of the image is far greater. Hypothetically, if National Geographic wanted to buy the image, if the image is unavailable to them except through Coastalconn then they will be willing to pay a premium price for it along with the possibility of a certiain percentage of royalty for each magazine sale or for website revenue. If they can buy the picture for $50 from flickr, why bother doing business with him at all?

Selling the rights to 100 images on flickr is far less profitable or worthwhile than selling one to National Geographic on your own.


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## vintagesnaps

Exactly.

No, I don't think typically you'd get an additional payment from the same person who licensed a photo, but you could have more than one person license it. 

Usually they can sublicense (depending on Terms on the site) so can keep reusing/reselling your photos(s) from now til' freakin' doomsday. (OK, maybe not really _that_ long, but if there's no limit, they can keep reselling your photo over and over.) So who will end up making most of the money from your photos? probably them not you. I think they're taking advantage of people.


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## W.Y.Photo

There is actually a huge profitable aspect to stock photography, and that's selling the images you otherwise don't care about. I know people who make a lot off of stock photography by selling their *Worst *images through stock photo sites. I don't think anyone should ever sell their best photos using stock prices or releases though.

The thing about stock photography is that it started as a way for photographers to make money off their otherwise non-profit worthy imagery then the companies got greedy and basically said  "Hey everyone, start selling us masterpeices for pennies and dimes!! Maybe you can make a whole dollar one day."


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## CygnusStudios

W.Y.Photo said:


> The thing about stock photography is that it started as a way for photographers to make money off their otherwise non-profit worthy imagery then the companies got greedy and basically said  "Hey everyone, start selling us masterpeices for pennies and dimes!! Maybe you can make a whole dollar one day."



Absolutely correct. For a few years everyone was jumping on the stock bandwagon and then Time Magazine bought their cover shot for something like $30 and it opened the flood gates. This was when Getty was buying up everything in sight and photographers by the thousands were inputting everything they shot. 

Some people made some decent money going this route and opened up some new avenues for beginning photographers. Today, most have gone back to more traditional RM licensing. 

If someone wants to put their lowest quality work or generic work out there and get paid a few bucks, I don't see the harm in it, just go into with open eyes.


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## unpopular

W.Y.Photo said:


> Selling the rights to 100 images on flickr is far less profitable or worthwhile than selling one to National Geographic on your own.



That's such a silly way to look at it, especially for the kind of work I do.


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## W.Y.Photo

unpopular said:


> W.Y.Photo said:
> 
> 
> 
> Selling the rights to 100 images on flickr is far less profitable or worthwhile than selling one to National Geographic on your own.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's such a silly way to look at it, especially for the kind of work I do.
Click to expand...


I'm just using NG as an example. It goes for any field of photography unless you are specifically shooting for stock sites. It doesn't matter what the subject matter is.. If I take an exceptional photo of a model at a runway show or a mountain in a national park, there is going to be someone more profitable to sell that image to than a stock photo site. The model or the national park will be willing to pay a lot more than $50-200 for exceptional work, but if I throw it up to a stock website I essentially just tossed away a large chunk of that images profitability.

I'm not saying stock photography is bad for every photograph, just that its not good for many photographs.

That's not to mention how stock photography kills the value of good photography in general.


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## KmH

Time used that iStockphoto micro-stock agency stock photo back in 2009 (April 27, 2009 issue).
Getty (and Corbis) started buying up independent stock photography houses in the late 1990's.
In 2008 Getty Images was bought by Hellman & Friedman, a private equity firm.
Flickr announced a partnership with Getty Images in 2009.
By 2009 the consolidation of the Stock Photography industry was pretty much complete.

Time paid more than $30 to use the photo. Time had a *weekly* print run of about 3.5 million magazines around then.
The amateur photographer, Robert Lam, got a check for $31.50 from iStockphoto.com. Apparently $30 for the Time cover image, and $1.50 for something else of his that got licensed that month.
At that time, creation of a Time Magazine cover photo by a professional photographer cost Time about $3,000.

You can buy a copy of that April 27, 2009 cover from Time. An 11 x 14 print matted in a 14 x 18 satin black metal frame only costs $99.95.
You know how much of that $99.95 the photographer gets? $00.00.


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## unpopular

But the question remains, would time have used that image at all if it were $3,000?

I sincerely doubt it.


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## CygnusStudios

Time had bought micro stock images before that one... If memory serves (sometimes it doesn't) a baby shot was the most famous stock photo purchase, but even that one wasn't the first.


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## CygnusStudios

Just read this: Take a look at the numbers, more than 40,000 images added daily to the collection. That's just them...


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## KmH

unpopular said:


> But the question remains, would time have used that image at all if it were $3,000?
> 
> I sincerely doubt it.


Read the tag line on the cover of that issue - "The New Frugality".
Using a stock image rather than paying a pro $3000 to make the cover shot _supports the tag line_.


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## unpopular

Well, I'll stress as I've stressed before. I have no obligation to other photographers.


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## Buckster

unpopular said:


> or it could sit in my flickr account and never be used at all. seems silly to get greedy over an image that has no value...


I see your point.  For people who shoot crap that has no value, they might as well take a dollar if someone's willing to offer it.

I personally place a much higher value on my work.  It's not at all unusual for me to turn down an offer if a potential client doesn't want to pay my price, and it doesn't bother me in the least.  But that's just me.

I've yet to see a stock agency deal that financially appeals to me as the one who put in the time, effort and money to create the work, especially with the current craze of noobs flooding them with a gazillion images in a race to the bottom.


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## unpopular

Yeah. I withdrew my license before they were included. I don't know if I'm subjecto to the 120 day thing, but you all are right. It's a pretty bad deal.

This isn't to say that my images will be on the cover of a magazine, but RF does impact the overall value and merit of my work. I don't want my images to be seen in a gallery and the first thing that comes into mind is, "hey, it's that background from the Viagra ad"


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## spacefuzz

I found this blog post enlightening on the subject: Why I Canceled Exclusivity with iStock - Nicolesy


As for me all my stock is RM, and although I wish it sold more often its more than pocket change. I shudder to think what I would be making in microstock.


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## unpopular

Just as an update, the Yahoo rep who was working with me was very helpful and said that because I withdrew my images before she had a chance to include them, they were excluded immediately.

Thanks for all your input guys.


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## DinoThePhotoGuy

unpopular said:


> Yeah. I withdrew my license before they were included. I don't know if I'm subjecto to the 120 day thing, but you all are right. It's a pretty bad deal.
> 
> This isn't to say that my images will be on the cover of a magazine, but RF does impact the overall value and merit of my work. I don't want my images to be seen in a gallery and the first thing that comes into mind is, "hey, it's that background from the Viagra ad"


I Agree. Can you Imagine. I can't stop laughing thinking about it.


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## DinoThePhotoGuy

what is RM?


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## KmH

See post #5 for info about RM.


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