New Streamlined Rights Managed Licensing

A new approach to Rights Managed imagery offers a simpler and streamline approach to licensing imagery.


A Simplified Approach To Rights Managed Imagery

We all hate paper work and complexity, and Rights Managed imagery has a reputation for being complex and unwieldy. But that is changing.

Blend Images is pioneering, or perhaps re-pioneering, a new way to approach Rights Managed imagery (Getty tried “Rights Ready” years ago but it was still too unwieldy and ultimately was abandoned). RM, as it is known, was the original model for stock photography, but has fallen far behind in volume to RF (Royalty Free) and microstock (which is simply lower-priced RF).

High Prices And Complex Fees

Part of the popularity of RF imagery over RM is that RM has the reputation, if not always the reality, of higher price points. Of course, after getting a lot of my sales reports it sometimes seems to me that RM can underbid any RF image (RF images are sold by image size)! I have actually had RM sales in which my share came to 4 cents…more than once! But perhaps an even bigger problem in today’s world for RM images lies in the complexity of the fee structure.

Pricing RM

Have you ever gone to Getty’s site (or for that matter any RM site) and priced RM? Yikes! It is complicated, frustrating and time-intensive. I find it intensely irritating to be trying to come up with all the various parameters only to, at some point in the process, to be stumped as to what category, industry or specific application that is offered in the pull down menus fits my unique needs. You also need to know such things as the duration of the use, size of the use, print run numbers and circulation figures. It is enough to turn one to RF!

Making RM Simple

Blend Images has come up with a new approach that makes licensing RM imagery much simpler. They are offering a series of bundles of rights that greatly simplifies the licensing process. If you need exclusive use then one can talk to a sales person. There will always be a need for Rights Managed imagery…in my own case I have exclusive agreements with greeting card companies so I cannot offer my humorous animal images as RF. And many clients just don’t want to risk having their competition using the same images. Now those clients have an option that can fill their need for RM photos that approaches RF in terms of simplicity of licensing.

RM Licensing Bundles

On the Blend site you can choose either “editorial” or “commercial”. If you choose editorial you then can choose “Cover” or Digital Non-cover. Next you choose and “industry” and finally “duration”. It is even simpler than it sounds. If you choose “commercial”, you get a choice of three different bundles and a forth that includes “all commercial uses”. You gain choose an “industry” and a “duration” that ranges from one to five years. This is going to change how creatives view Rights Managed imagery!

A Discount On Your Stock Photo Licenses

And for those of you who are interested in checking the new pricing out, whether you need RF or RM, if you use the discount code JL-PROMO2016 you can get a 25% discount on any stock image you license on the Blend site. As a matter of fact, tell your friends and co workers as well (disclaimer…I too get a bonus when that discount code is used). Hey, what are you waiting for!