Royalty-free (RF) material subject to
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
or other
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...
rights may be used without the need to pay
royalties or
license fees for each use, per each copy or volume sold or some time period of use or sales.
Computer standards
Many computer industry standards, especially those developed and submitted by industry consortiums or individual companies, involve royalties for the actual implementation of these standards. These royalties are typically charged on a "per port"/"per device" basis, where the manufacturer of end-user devices has to pay a small fixed fee for each device sold, and also include a substantial annual fixed fee. With millions of devices sold each year, the royalties can amount to several millions of dollars, which is a significant burden for the manufacturer. Examples of such royalties-based standards include IEEE 1394,
HDMI
High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...
, and H.264/
MPEG-4 AVC.
Royalty-free standards do not include any "per-port" or "per-volume" charges or annual payments for the actual implementation of the standard, even though the text of the actual specification is typically protected by copyright and needs to be purchased from the standards body. Most
open standard
An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development. There is no single definitio ...
s are royalty-free, and many proprietary standards are royalty-free as well. Examples of royalty-free standards include
DisplayPort
DisplayPort (DP) is a digital display interface developed by a consortium of PC and chip manufacturers and standardized by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). It is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device su ...
,
VGA
Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can now ...
,
VP8, and
Matroska.
Photography and illustrations
In
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...
and the
illustration
An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, video ...
industry, it refers to a
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
license where the user has the right to use the picture without many restrictions based on one-time payment to the licensor. The user can therefore use the image in several projects without having to purchase any additional licenses. RF licenses can not be given on an exclusive basis. In
stock photography, RF is one of the common licenses sometimes contrasted with
Rights Managed
Rights Managed, or RM, in photography and the stock photo industry, refers to a copyright license which, if purchased by a user, allows the one-time use of the photo as specified by the license. If the user wants to use the photo for other uses ...
licenses and often employed in
subscription-based or
microstock photography business models.
See also
*
Open standard
An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development. There is no single definitio ...
*
Royalty-free music
Production music (also known as stock music or library music) is recorded music that can be licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media. Often, the music is produced and owned by production music libraries.
Backgroun ...
References
Copyright licenses
*
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