Vor weni­gen Tag ging eine Email von Getty Images an deren Fotografen. Darin wird kurz gesagt das Ende des „Rights Managed“-Lizenzmodells ver­kün­det.

Aufmerksame Leser die­ses Blogs dürf­ten das spä­tes­tens nach die­ser Portfolio-​Analyse bei Getty Images ver­mu­tet haben. Demnach sind aktu­ell nur noch ca. 8% des Bildbestands RM-​Material.

„Rights Managed“, oft RM abge­kürzt, bedeu­tet, dass Bilder basie­rend auf den kon­kre­ten Nutzungsrechten lizen­ziert wer­den. Der Lizenzpreis rich­tet sich nach Variablen wie Nutzungsdauer, Auflagenhöhe, Verbreitung (Länder/​Kontinente/​weltweit) und so wei­ter. Dadurch ist die Preiskalkulation im Vergleich zu den „royal­ty free“-Bildern kom­plex und zeit­auf­wän­dig, sowohl für die Kunden als auch die Bildagentur. Eine genaue­re Erklärung zu RM fin­det ihr hier.

Laut Getty wür­den Kunden ver­mehrt Bilder wie­der­ver­wen­den wol­len und bei den geplan­ten Nutzungen fle­xi­bler sein. Deswegen wer­den seit ges­tern kei­ne RM-​Bilder mehr ange­nom­men, ab Ende Januar 2020 wer­den kei­ne RM-​Bilder mehr auf der Getty-​Webseite ange­zeigt.

Für alle, die die­se Mail nicht erhal­ten haben, hier ist sie im Volltext:

„Continued suc­cess of royalty‑free licen­sing and our plans for a pha­sed reti­re­ment of rights‑managed crea­ti­ve images
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Over the years, custo­mers’ needs have chan­ged. Complicated licen­sing models crea­te fric­tion and custo­mers demand simplicity—they want the most simp­le and most fle­xi­ble access to rele­vant, authen­tic image­ry.

Royalty‑free (RF) image­ry is now the pre­fer­red and domi­nant licen­sing model for our custo­mers ­due to the sim­pli­ci­ty, value and qua­li­ty avail­ab­le. Licensing com­ple­xi­ty has only led custo­mers to other con­tent, and in many cases, ano­t­her pro­vi­der as the broa­der indus­try is now essen­ti­al­ly an RF‑only model.

We con­duc­ted exten­si­ve custo­mer rese­arch and tes­ting on RF ver­sus rights‑managed (RM), inclu­ding Market Freeze. We have con­fi­dent­ly con­clu­ded that the RM crea­ti­ve image licen­sing model no lon­ger meets our custo­mers’ needs, espe­ci­al­ly given the fle­xi­bi­li­ty deman­ded by digi­tal mar­ke­ting and the increa­sing reu­se of image­ry, and it actual­ly redu­ces our over­all com­pe­ti­tiveness.

As a result, we plan to sim­pli­fy our pro­duct offe­ring through a pha­sed reti­re­ment of RM crea­ti­ve images, moving to an RF‑only crea­ti­ve images offe­ring during 2020. This will bene­fit custo­mers and pro­vi­de an oppor­tu­ni­ty to grow over­all licen­sing volu­me and reve­nue for both Getty Images and our con­tri­bu­tors:
When a custo­mer uses GettyImages.com, they will have only one simp­le licen­sing model (RF) which con­tains all of our crea­ti­ve images.
Images appearing in custo­mers‘ search results will be the most relevant—no lon­ger will the results inclu­de RM, regard­less of relevance—opening up more search expo­sure for crea­ti­ve RF.
Our custo­mers will be able to focus on the one thing that mat­ters to them—finding authen­tic qua­li­ty con­tent that con­nec­ts with their tar­get audi­ence.
We see this fun­da­men­tal chan­ge in our busi­ness model as key to fur­the­ring our growth and increa­sing the acces­si­bi­li­ty of ama­zing con­tent to new custo­mers and new mar­kets.

Your RM crea­ti­ve images
By the end of January 2020, your RM images will be remo­ved from sin­gle image licen­sing (some­ti­mes cal­led à la car­te) on GettyImages.com. Customers will still be able to com­ple­te rene­wals and purcha­se RM crea­ti­ve images for at least the fol­lo­wing 30 days after that. Premium Access custo­mers will still be able to access RM images until November 6, 2020.

When RM is ful­ly reti­red, you will be able to dis­tri­bu­te your RM images as you wish, with the excep­ti­on that you must not licen­se any RM images (or simi­lars) in a way that con­flic­ts with any active, unex­pi­red exclu­si­ve licen­ses. We will con­tact you again in November 2020 to con­firm that RM has been ful­ly reti­red and pro­vi­de a report detail­ing such licen­ses.

We will stop accep­t­ing new RM crea­ti­ve images on November 6, 2019 at 11:59pm CET/​ 10:59pm GMT/​ 5:59pm EST/​ 2:59pm PST. You can find out more in our FAQs, below.

RF oppor­tu­ni­ty
We encou­ra­ge you to grow your RF port­fo­lio with new fresh image­ry to meet cur­rent custo­mer demands, which you can do under your exis­ting agree­ment.

For gui­d­ance and inspi­ra­ti­on, you can review our crea­ti­ve briefs, which iden­ti­fy the most nee­ded sub­jec­ts for our custo­mers and enab­le you to respond to gaps in our RF collec­tion. Our briefs reflect the rese­arch of our industry‑leading Creative Insight team, inclu­ding mar­ket trends and custo­mer licen­sing data, and are avail­ab­le on the Contributor Community Website and our Contributor app.

If you have any ques­ti­ons or need to con­tact us, plea­se refer to the fre­quent­ly asked ques­ti­ons below and regu­lar­ly updated in our online con­tri­bu­tor forums on the Contributor Community web­site.“

Diese Entscheidung betrifft aus­drück­lich nur die „Creative“-Sparte mit den zeit­lo­sen Bildern, die Nachrichten-​Bilder wer­den bei Getty wei­ter­hin als „rights mana­ged“ ange­bo­ten.

Nichtsdestotrotz dürf­te die­se Entscheidung der Sargnagel für das RM-​Marktsegment sein. Zwar gibt es aktu­ell noch eini­ge Bildagenturen, die ihr Portfolio auf RM-​Basis ver­mark­ten, aber zumin­dest die Vertriebspartner von Getty Images wie Westend61, Imagebroker oder F1online dürf­ten die Annahme von RM-​Material ver­mut­lich eben­falls bald stop­pen.