7 Common Image Licensing Mistakes

1. Once I've licensed an image, I own it. Yes and no. You will be in possession of the digital file, but the copyright is not transferred to you with the license. In most cases the photographer retains all rights including title and copyright and is simply contracting with the photo agency to sub-license their images (unless the image comes from a wholly-owned collection). When you license an image what you are really doing is purchasing the rights to use that image according to the terms of the license.
2. "Royalty-free" means "free." Wouldn't that be nice? While it is true that you can find 100% free stock photos these days, the word royalty-free should not be confused with free stock photos. A royalty-free license is different in that your must pay a one-time fee before downloading the image. Once purchased, you'll be able to use the file as many times as you like, in as many ways as you'd like with very few restrictions. The cost of the royalty-free license is determined solely by the file size you wish to download. Although there are no standard royalty-free image sizes, most photo agencies provide both low-res (72 dpi, good for web use) as well as high-res (300 dpi, good for print) options.
3. Licensing a "Rights-managed" (or rights-protected) image guarantees that I won't see the same image being used by my competitors. Not entirely true. The chances of this happening are diminished because of the typically higher cost associated with a rights-managed license, yet there is nothing to stop your competitors from swiping your brilliant image and licensing it for their own use. A rights-managed license simply means you are purchasing the right to use that image within clearly defined parameters on a use-by-use basis. How can you protect yourself even further? Many photo agencies, including Luckypix, offer an additional level of exclusive protection. For example, when calculating the license fee of a rights-managed image using our online price calculator you'll be able to choose exclusive rights within your industry, your geographic region, or both.
4. I can use "Comping" images for personal use on my website. Not a good idea. Preview images, or "comps" as they are often called, are only offered by photo agencies as samples for testing purposes. They aren't intended for final use but instead allow you to get a better idea of the image before you license it. Designers typically download comps into their layouts or incorporate them into client presentation materials.
5. 300 dpi isn't a high enough resolution for what I need. I want to use this image on a billboard! Check with your printer first, but in general a 300 dpi image (properly sized) is sufficient for most billboard-sized output. How can this be? It all comes down to viewing distance. The further away a photograph is, the lower the resolution needs to be. This is especially true when it comes to billboards. Did you know that the average size of a billboard is 14 ft by 48 ft and that the resolution of a billboard print ranges between 2 to 20 dpi? See also Viewing Distance: The Misunderstood Concept
6. I heard that the JPEG format is a "lossy" format. Why do you use it? File size! A high resolution JPEG image can be compressed 1 to 10 without any noticeable visible artifacts. To the naked eye there is almost no difference between an image that was saved using high quality JPEG compression settings and an image saved using a loss-less image format such as TIF. Photo agencies use high quality JPEG compression to transfer images quickly. If you suspect that you have downloaded a low resolution image, open up the file in Photoshop and view the pixel dimensions in the "Image Size" dialog box. Even though the file you downloaded was a only a few megabytes in size, the pixel dimensions should reflect a much larger image. If the image opened at 72 dpi you may also need to adjust the resolution to 300 dpi without re-sampling the image. TIF files are generally available for most of our rights-managed images.
7. I was inspired, now I am going to shoot my own photos instead of licensing them from you. Once an image has been created, it is protected under copyright law and several rights are assigned to the copyright holder including the ability to restrict the creation of derivative works. And while the image police probably won't come chasing after you, it would be better to license the original or come up with your own ideas rather than getting caught trying to pass images off as your own!

This entry was posted by Christoph, on June 20, 2006. You can leave your response.