Rights Managed or Royalty Free

[Stephen D]

Hi All

Can anyone explain to me the difference between a Rights Managed image and a RF image nowadays?

I have been an Alamy contributor since 2006 and I used to know the difference!

I have two Alamy accounts - one for Rights Managed images and one for RF images.

This month I had a sale of 3 of my Rights Managed images with details saying -

"Country: Worldwide Usage: Standard License designed for unlimited web use across social media, websites, online advertising. Print runs are limited to 100,000. Editorial and user restrictions apply., Standard License for 1 user only. Allowed usage: across websites, social media, short-form video on video sharing sites, digital publishing, digital marketing, and print runs up to 100,000. Restrictions stated prior to or at time of purchase may limit the scope of permissible usage. Start: 11 February 2024 Duration: In perpetuity" Amount $.

To me that looks very much like an RF license.

Yesterday I had a sale of one of my RF images with identical details but for ££ amount. More worrying was the fact that under License it was listed as Rights Managed in my account even though all images in that account are RF.

I contacted Contributor Relations and received the following reply - 

 

"We’ve introduced a simpler way our e-commerce customers can license images from the Alamy site. We need to streamline our licensing and pricing options for a user-friendly, intuitive and scalable e-commerce experience that is competitive and reflects the current market in the stock photo industry. This is not something you can opt out of.

This strategic simplification can eliminate confusion, boost conversions, and consequently, enhance revenue.

These licenses are for our e-commerce customers while our account-managed customers will still mainly be licensing images for specific projects as they have always done, and we will still be offering custom licenses for those who want it. The new license does not affect where images can be used, s­­o if you have marked your images for ‘editorial use only’ the customer will still be bound by the terms of using the images for editorial use only".

The phrase "This is not something you can opt out of" is a bit worrying. We used to have some choice in how our images were licensed.

All the best

Steve

[Allan Bell]

Hi Stephen D,

 

This has been mentioned in a number of threads in the forums in the past and it seems, to me, at least as an RM contributor, that RM is now classed as RF as far as Alamy licences are concerned.

 

Allan

 

[John Mitchell]

Alamy's "hybrid" RM/RF licenses have been around for a long time, but the new "standard" and "enhanced" licenses appear to be a new kettle of fish, so to speak. If they result in sales of images that have been sitting around gathering dust, then perhaps they will be a good thing. Not sure what "e-commerce customers" are, though. Aren't all stock photography transactions e-commerce these days?

[Steve Dorey]

I finally got an answer from Alamy about customers.

 

"An e-commerce customer is a customer who is likely to purchase a one-off license from Alamy.

An account managed customer is a customer who regularly licenses from Alamy".

 

All the best

Steve

[John Mitchell]

I wonder why the "Standard" and "Enhanced" licensing options don't show up with the other "Buy this image now" choices on the image page. You would think think that e-commerce customers would want to do an instant download.