Rights Managed

Rights Managed refers to a type of contract between a two entities (the licensor and licensee), that is employed when licensing the rights to use content, such as photographs. The term Rights Managed means that the seller of the license is specifically giving permission to the buyer to use the content in a certain way. This typically includes restrictions on the length of time, the medium, the size, the format and the location the content can be used (in). The more flexible, or beneficial rights one purchases, the more expensive the license.

The Rights Managed license contrasts with the royalty-free license, wherein the buyer usually receives the right to use the content in perpetuity, with much more flexible restrictions. Royalty Free because they normally do not need to come back to pay more royalties for additional rights for other uses.

Typically, for an image that has always been licensed as Rights Managed, the licensor is able to provide a history of usage to a prospective licensee. This can benefit the licensee, because they can be assured specific content is not being used in a certain geographical region by a competitor, for example. The history can also provide the licensor with the opportunity to make additional income from offering the licensee an option such as exclusivity within a specific region or industry. If the image does not have a recorded history (it may have initially been sold Royalty Free, for example), the licensor would not be able to provide such an opportunity. Again, the Rights Managed license is merely a set of restrictions placed on the content's use. At its base, it is not a guarantee of exclusivity in any sense.

The concept of Rights Managed comes from copyright, a statute that allows authors and publishers of works to be the sole arbiter of the exploitation of that work, and to set fees associated with that work. The economic incentives afforded by copyright give artists one way to make a living through their creative works.

An example of how Rights Managed works benefit you and the content's publisher might be that you simply have a local business' newsletter which is printed monthly, and which prints 400 copies. A fee for this small use might be $100, because the benefit the business receives from the use is small, so the fee is comparable. This same image, used editorially in a national publication, reaching 15 million people might have a fee of between $500 and $1000, for the same image. The concept here is that when the benefit to the organization increases, so too does the fee paid to the publisher.

Some standards exist for the royalty charges for the various restrictions. [http://www.cradocfotosoftware.com/fotoQuote-Pro/ Fotoquote] is a piece of software that can provide sample royalty charges for photography content based on any number of category restrictions.