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

 

[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.

 

[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

 

[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.

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.

 

[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

 

[W.Fovall]

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

 

[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..

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...

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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

 

[coastalconn]

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...

 

[KmH]

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

 

[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...

 

[tirediron]

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

 

[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.