What types of licenses do microstocks use?
1. Royalty free – the main kind of license on microstocks. The work can be sold by this license with no limit in number of times. Author still has all rights. Purchaser gets only right to use images by limited drawing and in limited variety of ways. For example, it is not allowed to use them in advertisement. Author’s fee in this case are not large and strictly fixed by every photobank (usually a few tens cents for downloading) and it doesn’t depend on how your masterpiece will be used if it will be used.
2. Extended Royalty Free - It is used just as usual one, but with few exceptions. Purchaser can use your image wherever he wants, including commercial aims. Author’s fees are also fixed, but well higher (usually not less than $10). But these licenses are bought significantly more seldom. Some work can be bought by your competitors, as in case of usual RF-license.
3. Exclusive Buyout – by this license you sell all rights on your image. After that you must delete illustration from photobank and not to sell it ever again. Purchaser can use your work however he wants. The price goes up to few thousand dollars. People buy images by this license very seldom. More than that, not all photobanks offer it. This license has some disadvantages for authors. For example, if you are not in time to take the work away from photobank or if you still have some works from this set (rights to the whole photosession are sold simultaneously). In this case you have a risk to take a ban.
These are the main types of licenses, used by microstocks. There are few another ones, but they almost aren’t used and we won’t talk about them.