What are stock photographs?
   Stock photographs are pictures made by a photographer at her/his own expense for use under licence later.   Copyright to the images remains with the photographer.
   Stock photographs are not "sold". They are licensed to users under various models: Rights Managed, (RM), Rights Protected (RP) or Royalty Free (RF).
    Rights managed pictures are licensed for specified use(s) in specified media for particular time periods and distribution regions.  Other subsequent uses, reprint rights and time extensions require new licences.
    Rights protected pictures are licensed in a similar way plus the usage history of the images is recorded to help avoid confict with competitors or inappropriate uses.  Various levels of exclusivity of usage may be available.
    As the name implies, royalty free pictures provide the user with no information about the pictures, where they have been used or may be used in future.  Conflicting, humorous and embarrassing examples of inappropriate and/or multiple use of royalty free images occur regularly and are a source of great amusement to one's competition and the photography industry.
   Incidentally, royalty free photos tend to be significantly more costly for one-time or infrequent use. One major stock photo agency shows the average cost of RF to be double that of RM images.


What does use of stock photographs cost?
   When you license an RM picture you select and pay only for the use you wish to make of the picture.  If you license a picture for one time use in a power point presentation to a small audience there is a small fee while the same picture licensed for use in a national advertising campaign will have a higher fee.
   We license only RM pictures - and we work hard to help you select and pay only for the use you need and to provide the best value we can.

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