What does royalty free images mean? This is a question that the creative community should be able to answer and understand. As bloggers, designers and even business persons, you are dealing with stock photography to help convey your message or enhance your design. You need to have enough knowledge about which right license to get with your photos to protect yourself from copyright issues in the future.
Royalty free is the most common license sold by stock photo agencies. It grants you the right to use the images in multiple ways, for a flat one-time fee. This means you only pay for the images once. Then, you can use them forever in multiple accepted ways with few restrictions and without further payment obligations.
The most important concept you need to understand about buying a royalty free license is that you are only purchasing the right to use the images in particular ways. You are not buying the ownership of the photos. The photographer or the contributor is still is the owner of the photos, so they can sell their work multiple times and generate more income.
Stock photo agencies sell licenses that give you the right to use the photos, but they don’t transfer the ownership. They and the contributor will then split the profit from the sold license. With other licenses, you need to pay the agency, the contributor or both every time you use the photos. With Royalty free, this is not required. You only pay once for a set of rights. That’s it!
Many stock photo agencies offer royalty free images. Some of the most popular include Shutterstock, iStock, Adobe Stock, 99 Club and Depositphotos. Getty Images is the leading stock photo sites in the industry today. With over 200 million stock files, you will surely find what you are looking for. If you need royalty free photos, you can visit the above sites and see which suits your creative needs and budget.