Explanation about royalty-free license

Royalty-free is reffering to a type of contract between two entities (between the photographer or the owner of the copyrights of a image and the buyer) used to license the rights to use an image. The term of royalty-free refers to the fact that once such a license has been brought under certain condition, the image can be used freely withing the contract boundaries without further payments of royalties to the owner of the copyright.

In contrast with the right-managed type of license, the buyer is not restricted in the use of image with respect to time, geographical area, industry, print-run etc. The dissadvantage of royalty-free license is that the owner of the copyright cannot offer the history of use of an image, once the image has been licensed once.

The conditions imposed in the royalty-free license contract varies can vary. Usually, the photographer retains the all the copyrights to an image, including the right to distribution or to grant re-distribution. Some contracts will allow the re-distribution rights of derivative works as T-shirts, calendars or computer templates. For web the number of uses is unlimited, while in print, there is a limit imposed on the print-run.

The price of such a licence also varies with the size of the image, the rights granted and the agencies granting the license in the photographer's name. A normal price varies withing 1 and 15$, in contrast to 100 to 1000$ for a rights-managed license.

Mihai-Bogdan LAZAR owns all the copyrights and selling rights of his photographs. Mihai-Bogdan LAZAR has also granted the rights of re-selling his works to 3 microstock agencies, licensing royalty-free content: Dreamstime, Istockphoto and Shutterstock. Although all 3 agencies are offering more-or-less the same type of license, their prices vary. Please check their prices and contract terms before purchasing: Dreamstime, Istockphoto and Shutterstock. Mihai-Bogdan LAZAR receives a comision for each sale through these agencies, which varies between 20 and 60% of the purchasing price.

If your license need cannot be fulfill by the offers of these 3 agencies, please feel free to contact me directly for a price quote. I will also answer any question you might have on the subject.

Best regards,
Mihai-Bogdan LAZAR
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