Rights-managed versus royalty-free

You can purchase a variety of creative products to enhance your marketing projects such as photographs, illustrations, film clips and audio files. Before you buy, you should decide if you want royalty-free (RF) or rights-managed (RM).

Royalty-free means you pay only once for the image, film clip or audio file and can use it for multiple projects over an unlimited amount of time. This is a very inexpensive way to add creative interest to your marketing projects. And because the artist receives some compensation, there are many high-quality choices to choose from.

The downside is you can end up with a royalty-free product flooding the marketing place. Because royalty-free products are so inexpensive, they're also nonexclusive, and other businesses (including your competition) can purchase the same product for the same purpose, thus diminishing their effectiveness for you.

Rights-managed means you pay each time you use the product. Obviously the downside is the cost – if you use the product quite a bit, you can rack up the expense.

However, because the products are more costly to use, you don't have to worry about them popping up everywhere. You've bought a level of exclusivity – so it's possible to connect a brand or corporate identity to that particular image, clip or sound bite.

Wild Woman Design specializes in creating the right images for businesses. From developing logos to choosing color schemes to designing a look for Web sites and brochures, we make sure your business always looks its best.

For more information about our services, including testimonials and samples of our work, please visit our Web site at www.WildWomanDesign.com.

Need an article for your website or e-newsletter? Feel free to use one of ours – just keep the copyright/author information intact. You can find articles at www.WildWomanDesign.com.

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