What are the different types of stock image licenses?
The two main and most common types of stock photo licenses are called royalty-free, sometimes written as just “RF”, and rights-managed, RM. When licensing royalty-free images, the buyer receives almost unlimited usage from the copyright holder. You, the buyer, can use the RF image in virtually any medium or application, for as long as you like (you will see the legal jargon call the length “in perpetuity”), in as many projects as you need, as long as you stay within the licensing terms of the agreement. Once you purchase the image you are free to use it immediately. What sometimes confuses people within the term royalty free is the word “free” and thinking that the image is free to use. What royalty free really means is that the person using the image is free from having to pay any future royalties in a future project once the initial payment has been made to the copyright holder for using that image i.e. no additional royalty payments are owed. With rights-managed images (RM), the buy
