What exactly is stock photography?

As I wrote in one of my previous blogs: a picture is worth a thousand words. Of course, the phrase is worn out, but it doesn't matter, it's still relevant. In this article, I will touch on, in fact, more about what stock photos are and the rights and restrictions we have when using them.

To most who are at least a little involved in design or photo the term "stock" is known, but it actually means what it is supposed to mean - i.e. stock. In practice, however, it means that we have pre-recorded photos with certain motifs and specific copyrights that allow their use for design or agency purposes (editorial). The latter are usually image masks and supporting image material for news. There, on a symbolic level, they display and equip an article or news item a little more plastically, if we don't have concrete pictorial material available.

The story is similar in graphic design as well - sometimes it doesn't make sense to take photos specifically for an ad or banner, but we use an approximation of what we want. The exchange of this material experienced a real euphoric boom with the use of the Internet and micro stock agencies. Which again has its consequences, but more on that a little further down.

Types of stock photo usage rights

Well, let's get back to the rights we have when buying such image material. In general, we distinguish between two different usage rights: RF (royalty free) and RM (rights managed). With stock materials, the first one is most often used, which roughly speaking has the following characteristics:

• Even if its use is called "royalty free", it does not mean that the photo is free, it is protected by the same laws as all copyrighted works.
• We can process the photo as we wish, but we cannot resell such a product as an author's stock product
• We pay a usage fee for each use or publication
• The time of use is not limited (so we can make our own stock, which does not really make sense)
• Exclusive rights to use such material: the photographer can sell the same photo to any number of buyers.
• Use is limited to the number of reproductions (say 50,000 copies of a newspaper containing the material in question)

"Right managed" use

Some stock photos may also be subject to more general rights of use, which are usually in use for commissioned photos. Usually, such a procedure is used more by stock agencies than by micro stocks. Such use is called RM, which means "right managed" or licensed use. Here, however, the matter is different and the restrictions of use may be as follows:

• Type of use: agency use, corporate use and "editorial" - use in the media
• Specific use: advertisement, poster, ...
• Expiry date from purchase
• Circulation
• Exclusivity (the photo can only be used by a specific subscriber who buys these rights)
• Territorial limitation
• Size of use in print media – ½ page, ¼ page, …

As we can see, the rights to use stock photos are very different, as are the prices for purchasing this material. Micro stock agencies (typical examples are Shutterstock and iStock) usually use the Royalty model (only for larger editions, say 400,000, a special price is paid), and the prices range from one to 50 euros. Real stock agencies (Getty images, Buenos Dias, ...) and prices can be 10x higher. Also, the quality of the image material is on average much higher there, which is not the rule. On micro stock agencies we can find top quality photos for a ridiculously low price, the problem is mainly in the search.

Since they have an open publication/sale of photos, this means that anyone who completes a basic questionnaire and the photos are of sufficient technical quality (not content!) can sell photos. The biggest challenge is therefore to find a suitable photo that will meet our criteria. Databases can be huge and reach up to 10 million photos (or more) and the choice is really big. At the same time, with such a flood of image material, we are also faced with a multitude of unsuitable and bad materials - this is the darker side of micro stock.

For ending

The matter is, to put it simply: if you are an agency with a large budget and very demanding clients and little time, the right choice is a large stock agency that will offer you less, but more quality. But if the agency is smaller, has limited resources and a little more time for the project - micro stock is ideal. The results can be just as great, we just need to take a little more time to search. He who seeks will find.