Rights Managed or Royalty Free?

[Tambira Photography]

Hello there. I am new to Alamy and am essentially still finding my footing in the stock photography world. On uploading my images I have come across the terms RM or RF. Which one do you think one should go with and why or under what circumstances. 

[george]

https://www.alamy.com/contributor/

 

a link to the contributor home page, information here and by using the search facility of the forum.

[Tambira Photography]

Thanks for your response but am not getting you. 

[Tambira Photography]

10 minutes ago, george said:

https://www.alamy.com/contributor/

 

a link to the contributor home page, information here and by using the search facility of the forum.

I managed to get this. Thanks for the link. 

[Tambira Photography]

POSTING FOR ANYONE WITH SIMILAR QUESTION:

 

Understanding stock image licensing

As a photographer you retain the copyright. Alamy just licenses your stock images for customers to use.

There are two image license types you can choose from:

• RM stands for Rights Managed. With this license, the customer only pays for what they’re using the image for. Rights Managed licenses can define how, where, when or for how long an image is being used.
• RF stands for Royalty Free. Customers pay a one–off fee to use the image with no restrictions on how they use it, or how long they use it for. RF images can be used across multiple projects, forever.

Our customers are increasingly asking for broader rights so we’d recommend selling your images as RF but the decision is yours. You can choose a different stock photo license for each image you upload, but we suggest not giving the same or very similar looking images different licence types.

If images contain people or property they need to have the right releases to be sold for commercial use.

If you choose to sell all your images under one license type, you can set a default by clicking the cog button in Alamy Image Manager.

[Tambira Photography]

POSTING FOR ANYONE WITH SIMILAR QUESTION:

 

Understanding stock image licensing

As a photographer you retain the copyright. Alamy just licenses your stock images for customers to use.

There are two image license types you can choose from:

• RM stands for Rights Managed. With this license, the customer only pays for what they’re using the image for. Rights Managed licenses can define how, where, when or for how long an image is being used.
• RF stands for Royalty Free. Customers pay a one–off fee to use the image with no restrictions on how they use it, or how long they use it for. RF images can be used across multiple projects, forever.

Our customers are increasingly asking for broader rights so we’d recommend selling your images as RF but the decision is yours. You can choose a different stock photo license for each image you upload, but we suggest not giving the same or very similar looking images different licence types.

If images contain people or property they need to have the right releases to be sold for commercial use.

If you choose to sell all your images under one license type, you can set a default by clicking the cog button in Alamy Image Manager.

[george]

top right hand corner of the forum page is a search box, put in RM RF or similar and lots will come up from previous discussion. But the contributor page covers a lot of things. Good luck

 

[Betty LaRue]

Used to, RM was what most here chose. Many still do.

These days, Alamy has been licensing our RM images almost like they were RF. 

For instance, if a buyer licenses a RM usage, once upon a time it was for a particular use with a well defined time limit.

Nowadays we are seeing our RM images licensed with time limits as basically no time limits, unlimited time or perpetuity. Much like RF, where the client buys a license and uses the image as long as they like. Boundaries between RM and RF have been blurred in recent years.

Whatever you decide, keep in mind you must choose RM, RM editorial or RF editorial if there are people and/or property in the image and you have no signed releases from the people in the image or owners of the property. Don’t list as plain RF.

 

Dont feel bad. It took me forever to understand this whole subject.  If you list everything RM, you don’t need to understand the nuances. You can’t go wrong. I suggest for you to do that (just list everything RM) until you gain understanding.

Betty

[Tambira Photography]

On 1/3/2019 at 22:31, Betty LaRue said:

Used to, RM was what most here chose. Many still do.

These days, Alamy has been licensing our RM images almost like they were RF. 

For instance, if a buyer licenses a RM usage, once upon a time it was for a particular use with a well defined time limit.

Nowadays we are seeing our RM images licensed with time limits as basically no time limits, unlimited time or perpetuity. Much like RF, where the client buys a license and uses the image as long as they like. Boundaries between RM and RF have been blurred in recent years.

Whatever you decide, keep in mind you must choose RM, RM editorial or RF editorial if there are people and/or property in the image and you have no signed releases from the people in the image or owners of the property. Don’t list as plain RF.

 

Dont feel bad. It took me forever to understand this whole subject.  If you list everything RM, you don’t need to understand the nuances. You can’t go wrong. I suggest for you to do that (just list everything RM) until you gain understanding.

Betty

 

Thanks Betty the mention of editorial also shed  a bit of light. I only realised I might have to read extensively as well but you mentioned the lines between the two have been blurred.

[Betty LaRue]

Glad to help. I don’t know a lot, but probably more than I think I do! 

[Ed Rooney]

Betty has it right. All my images are RM, but I don't click on "editorial only." I just say I have no model or property releases. 

 

Edo

[meanderingemu]

On 1/3/2019 at 23:31, Betty LaRue said:

 

Whatever you decide, keep in mind you must choose RM, RM editorial or RF editorial if there are people and/or property in the image and you have no signed releases from the people in the image or owners of the property. Don’t list as plain RF.

 

Dont feel bad. It took me forever to understand this whole subject.  If you list everything RM, you don’t need to understand the nuances. You can’t go wrong. I suggest for you to do that (just list everything RM) until you gain understanding.

Betty

 

that's great information. So the fact i entered that there was people or property And i didn't have a release, therefor putting the onus on purchaser is not enough, i must also make the other decision of RM or RF+editorial?  

[Betty LaRue]

Actually, most just list RM, but say no releases and that covers you just fine. A few people take it further with using the editorial designation, but I don’t unless I would want to list it RF-editorial. 

Alamy, for the last couple of years have stated that more and more customers want RF. As a result, I’ve listed some RF. Very few of those have an unreleased person or property, but if any do, I list it RF-editorial.

Betty

[KODAKovic]

On 1/3/2019 at 21:31, Betty LaRue said:

If you list everything RM, you don’t need to understand the nuances. You can’t go wrong.

 

You'll go wrong everytime you list an image here as RM and RF in other sites (can't do that by Alamy policies).

Also, you'll go wrong when using RM Exclusive here if images are available elsewhere as RM (GI for i.e., not iS)

[Gareth Sewell]

Well, that's interesting, I'm a newbie and have everything as RF as that's the default and I thought safest. I don't have any releases so I could do as Betty states.

Does that mean more money when there's a sale, but less sales?

 

[AdrianSea]

Well, just reading this thread has been a real education about RF and RM.

 

Apart from a couple of what I thought were my 'better' (or least worse) images I've used the default RF, then flagged them as editorial if they contained people and/or property. I may now consider just using RM.