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 The other day I read an article that purported that Getty’s Rights
Ready licensing model was a simplified Rights Managed model.
Balderdash, I say; sheer nonsense. Rights Ready, like Royalty Free, is
a pricing model that that assigns a single flat fee depending upon a
broad category of use. Let’s consider those uses in the Rights Ready
Model.
- Commercial uses include four options:
- Printed marketing material or product/packaging
- Web, electronic, or broadcast uses for commercial (vs. editorial) purposes
- Print ad or display
- All commercial uses
- Internal uses are simply described as “Internal Company.”
- Editorial uses include three options.
- Inside placement or back cover
- Front cover
- Web, electronic, or broadcast for editorial purposes
Keeping the above parameters in mind, let’s look at what factors are applied to determine the value of a Rights Managed stock photograph. There are nine factors.
- Media, e.g., print, electronic, digital, analog, merchandise
- Application, e.g., magazine, newspaper, brochure, poster, tee shirt
- Language Limits, e.g., English, French, German, Japanese
- Geographic Limits, e.g., USA, North America, Europe
- Quantity Limits, e.g., number of copies that can be made or circulated
- Time Limits, e.g., the duration of the license and/or of an embargo
- Frequency, e.g., the number of times or periods publication can be made
- Size, e.g., the dimensions percentage of space the image will occupy
- Placement, e.g., inside, inside cover, front cover, back cover, inside back cover
Anyone giving reasonable thought to the above information would have to conclude that Right Ready is not a simplified form of Rights Managed. Instead they would conclude that it is a distinct and simplified licensing model with limited broad choices of use and no restrictions on some factors like language, geography, quantity, and size. So Rights Ready Managed is not the parent of Rights Ready.
Rights Managed is all about specifics each one of which affects price. Rights Managed is also more expensive than Rights Ready. I priced the following use of a Rights Managed photograph at Getty Images Website.
- Use: Editorial – Magazine – Interior
- Size: Up to ¼ page
- Circulation: Up to 100,000
- Period of use: 1 month
- Geographic use: USA
The fee was $330. I then found a similar image in Getty’s Rights Managed collection. The fee for interior editorial use was $220. In this example Rights Managed is 50% more expensive than Rights Ready. That means Rights Managed is a weak contender when in a bout with Rights Ready. When is there a bout? Whenever images suitable for a user’s need are met by images found in both Rights Managed and Rights Ready collections.
So what does that mean Rights Managed “is” in reality? Rights Managed is the stock photography model that has been turned into an underdog from its once dominant position as top dog. Let me say that a much louder. RIGHTS MANAGED IS THE UNDERDOG IN THE CONTEST BETWEEN STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY MODELS!
Now that we know what Rights Managed is we can look at what it is not. It is not dead or dying. It is challenged for survival, but it is capable of surviving in good health. How can that happen? Generally, the way an underdog business survives is by a differentiation strategy. Differentiation can be achieved by any means, which will make an entity, product or service appear to be substantially different from another. A good example of a company that has substantially differentiated itself and its products is Apple. It holds about 3 to 5 percent of the personal computer market while its PC competitors hold the rest. But Apple continues to thrive because its products and image are differentiated from the competition. Can Rights Managed collections differentiate themselves? Will they? They can, but many won’t for either of two reasons. An agency with multi-model approach has to know that its Rights Managed collection makes its other models look like a bargain. That is good for business. Additionally, those agencies and many of the agencies that have only Rights Managed will not take the hard and necessary steps to differentiate themselves because it would require a major revision in the way they populate their collections.
Differentiating a Rights Managed collection can only be done in one way. Its images have to be different from those in the other stock models. Different in this case means being unique, highly creative, very timely, or niche. Pictures of the Yetti, Bigfoot, or Sasquatch would be very unique, and so would photos of snow leopards with their prey. Highly creative means that the photo is or is approaching art rather that simply being functional like most stock photography in existence. Timely photographs are things that have just recently happened and which usually have a short market life. A battle in Iraq is a good example. Niche photographs are of any subject you cannot find in volume in the other stock models. A collection of rattlesnake photographs is a good example. In brief, for a Rights Managed collection to thrive in face of the competitive models the collection is going to have to be very appealing to buyers who have special not generic needs. By the way, those kind of special needs are most common in the editorial marketplace. Since editorial stock is the lowest priced, it makes any effort to differentiate less profitable for most agencies. All these things present one serious challenge for Rights Managed collections, but some will meet the challenge and carve their niche in the changing marketplace. My photographs will stay in one of those collections.
(c) 2007 Richard Weisgrau [contact] [bio]
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All About Business 
