Image Licensing

Image licencing is a complex issue which could never entirely be explained here. We always suggest seeking your own independent legal advice to ensure the intended use of the image you have purchased wont land you in hot water (or a court).

A brief explanation of some of the common licence types out there.

Free
There are many internet sites offering free images for use. A word of caution, this does not mean they are free to be used for any purpose. These images most likely do not have the required releases. There was a quite well publicized case recently where a major airline used an image from a free site in a major advertising campaign. The people within the photo had not signed model releases and sued the airline in question.

Royalty Free
I came across a discussion where some graphics designers were under the mistaken impression that royalty free meant that the images had all the required releases and were free to be used for any purpose.
This is not the case all that royalty free means is that there is only a once off fee associated with the use of the image. There are no ongoing fees as there would be for the use of music for example where a yearly licence/royalty is payable.
The buyers and use of royalty free images are not generally tracked.

Rights Managed
With rights managed images the usage is tracked and the usage and territories can be controlled and limited. Generally if a company wanted to ensure it had exclusive use of an image for a period of time they would be purchasing an image under this licence.

Editorial
These images are usually taken in public places and do not have the required releases for commercial use. However they still can be used by people to write editorial articles. Editorial articles do not attempt to sell a product or service, they are generally a story written about the event or location. For example a photo taken in a shopping district full of people, stores etc. could be used to illustrate an article on the effect retail spending has on the economy or a travel type article talking about the main shopping districts in that particular area.
Editorial really isnt a licence type is more an image type, searching on the internet you will probably find editorial images being sold as royalty free or rights managed
These images can not be used for commercial purposes.