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Actually, I thought of an issue in making the full size image an RF license. I upload my editorial shots only to the macrostock sites as RM. On my Symbio site I am able to include them because I made all my licenses one use only – a type of RM.
If Symzio was to offer those images as RF, I would have to remove all my editorial RM shots from the new agency. Of course I could do that, but would prefer not to.
So I’m adding my vote to Redneck’s to make the larger file size a one-time use license if possible. Of course we still have no way of checking if people will really use it like that, but it avoids any potential issues with other sites especially when Symzio becomes a big successful agency!
Steve
Now that you mention it, that applies to me as well. I offer one-time-use only on my website because I have many images that are listed RM at other traditional agencies and their contracts actually forbid me to offer those anywhere else under RF.
Yes, based on what Redneck originally said about the preference towards One Time Use, I was wondering if the RF Unlimited was the best way to go for the full size. We have to examine if we will lose customers if we only offer one time use for the full size, or if that doesn’t really matter. I don’t actually fully understand why RF is offered at all since, in most cases, when a customer purchases an image they are probably trying to use it for one use anyways. It’s almost a useless perk that current agencies are providing which doesn’t hurt them, but hurts us considerably.
However, we need to determine if we need to offer that. I’m leaning towards not. In which case we would follow the same idea, except contributors would set prices on the full size one time use. However, I do think that the full size, one time use should be an ‘extended’ license in the sense that they can use it in unlimited prints and in items for resale, as long as it is for that singular purpose with a singular end product.
We have to examine if we will lose customers if we only offer one time use for the full size, or if that doesn’t really matter. I don’t actually fully understand why RF is offered at all since, in most cases, when a customer purchases an image they are probably trying to use it for one use anyway
But removing RF license for customer’s options is I think not a good idea since in-house and other small or big design agencies are more looking for flexible usage of images. Maybe we can attract more bloggers but we should not forget those individuals whose using images often for their daily design projects.
I agree – good for me. The one time license is a great idea, but very hard for any agency to track in reality. It is possibly not even clear that the person licensing the image realizes the restriction, although I agree some of them would.
I’ve just had a long email discussion with a buyer of one of my images from Dreamstime that he later realized had been marked as editorial. He had little idea what that really meant, so getting people to understand licensing and what they can and can’t do can be a challenge.I know most contributors are aware of usage and licenses of an image but in reality, customers, not all but most of them are not aware of that as long as they have a copy of our image they use it if they need it.
Hey Amazindesign – yes, you are right, that is a good point. Some companies may purchase a vector to be used in multiple capacities and don’t want to have to buy multiple copies or keep track of the amount of times they have used it etc.
We won’t settle on the above structure yet until we come to a consensus on what is best overall. We definitely want to attract corporate clients with the Full, Extended licenses.
All right, after discussing it internally and after taking everything into account, we think our original consensus is the best one:
$1.99, small, one time use
$(set by contributor), RF unlimited
I think that trying to accommodate RM media in the infrastructure while still competing directly with Shutterstock and Fotolia will be too difficult or confusing for customers.
For Steve and Redneck, the best option with regards to your RM media is to either remove it from Symzio for now, or hike the price up substantially for the RF Unlimited license. If the RM companies that are selling your media are doing so more profitably then it will be the best of both worlds to keep them excluded from Symzio.
In the end, we can’t diversify Symzio so much that its purpose gets blurred; it is a microstock platform. That’s where the hundreds of millions of dollars are being made.
All agreed?
I don’t agree but it won’t be a deal breaker for me.
Offering RF only will exclude many images (and contributors), not only the ones that are listed RM at other agencies but also a huge amount of editorial stuff. Think about the majority of Alamy shooters who don’t even bother to get a model or property release.At the end I think buyers don’t even care about licenses. The buy an image and they use it as much as they like. So calling a license One-Time-Use, Extended or RF won’t make much of a difference for the customer. It’s actually only to cover OUR bases.
You can sell editorial stuff as RF, can’t you?
At the end I think buyers don’t even care about licenses. The buy an image and they use it as much as they like. So calling a license One-Time-Use, Extended or RF won’t make much of a difference for the customer. It’s actually only to cover OUR bases.
That’s probably true for some people, but for corporate clients it probably isn’t. I think Amazindesign is correct in that if design studios have a choice, they will lean away from any legal liability.
Additionally, with Symzio, since your contract is directly with the customer, you are able to access their e-mail address to contact them, so there is a lot more accountability. You will know who purchased your media (what a revolutionary notion).
I do sympathize with the fact that not all choices will work for everyone, but you certainly are not as microstock oriented as you are rights managed, and the major market leaders do not appear to be rights managed, and Symzio is aiming for that market. Hopefully it will work for you in a larger capacity than it was prior to the consensus on custom pricing, and perhaps that can grow over time.
You can sell editorial stuff as RF, can’t you?
As far as I know NO, you can’t.
You can’t grant basically unlimited rights of an image if you don’t have any rights to it.I think you’re wrong about that – I just read iStock, Canva and Shutterstock’s licensing and the only restriction they list is that it cannot be used in a commercial capacity. In fact, Shutterstock explicitly states that editorial images are assigned using a ‘Standard’ license, which is defined in their legalese.
So this won’t exclude any editorial media at all. The only restriction it implements is if you have some form of exclusivity with another agency in the form of RM or otherwise.
Well – there is this fine blog post:
http://www.backyardsilver.com/2015/07/rf-versus-rm-versus-editorial-versus-commercial/
You can sell editorial as RF or RM – it is just that Alamy in particular automatically puts anything without a release into their RM category and then has the rule that you can’t sell an image that is RM with Alamy as RF anywhere else.
The latest plan isn’t a deal breaker for me either – I do tend to put my best shots into RM, but that is a decision I take to maximize my earnings. You couldn’t have such RM images appear in the search results but push the buyer through to the contributor site could you? We then pay you a fee if they buy from us directly.
Steve
123RF:
https://www.123rf.com/license.php?type=editorial
Clearly explicitly RF.
I think that Alamy (I’m assuming that’s where you’re referencing from) interchanges the terms RM and Editorial, when that is not actually accurate. RM is a licensing mechanism, whereas Editorial vs Commercial are use descriptors.
Does that alleviate some of your concern?
This is what Getty has to say. Clearly not RF.
It seems Getty is specifically attaching RM to Editorial shots, just as Alamy seems to do, but that does not mean that editorial shots are by definition RM. Their legalese pretty clearly states that ‘all our editorial shots are within our RM collection’, or something along those lines.
But all in all, it appears pretty clear that editorial does not have to be RM, even though some of these agencies carry it as such.
You couldn’t have such RM images appear in the search results but push the buyer through to the contributor site could you? We then pay you a fee if they buy from us directly.
I think we could look into this in the future, but it would cause a break in the search results as it would be more prudent if customers expected to be able to complete their purchase right there. We’d have to examine how to implement something like this, but I don’t think we can do that right now.
I don’t think it’s a huge problem that contributors with great work that requires higher, personalized management be excluded from Symzio and maintained with an RM agency. I don’t think this will harm us competing with the big players and won’t make most contributors too unhappy.
Additionally, based on what experiences I’ve read about, you’re likely to get a LOT of customers coming to your independent site via your contributor profile page on Symzio. I’ve found that a lot of customers, when they find an artist they like, they tend to want to contact them personally and bookmark them, etc. So having media on your site that is NOT available on Symzio may actually be beneficial in the long term.
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