Royalty-free image for book

can I make change on the image

[ruby20000]

Do I need a permission to modify(eg. cut, rotate, sharpen, redraw) a royalty-free image?
I'd like to use some images on a book and the book is going to sell in market. Do I need to pay any penny for these image? Does it count as reproduction on the images?
Thanks.

[Quadrille]

Depends on the terms of 'royalty free'.

In general, they've allowed you to USE the image; I very much doubt they've allowed you to alter it without specific approval, and there may be controls over you using the image commercially.

They OWN the image; they have given you a (free) LICENSE to use it. You need to read the terms of that license, there are no fixed rules.

[Syzygy]

If the image is royalty free, then, unless there is a specific clause built in to the terms of use (very unlikely, but do check), in creative terms you can do with the image as you wish. This is the point of royalty free: you can do with it as you wish, as many times as you wish. You can publish it whenever you want and however you want.

I'm aware of one major image library now supplying single "royalty free" images on, would you believe, a one-time-use only basis (which really defeats the whole point of royalty free!). Do make sure that any images have not been supplied to you on this basis (although I feel it unlikely as thus far this, to the best of my knowledge, only applies to images supplied at negotiated rates).

Syzygy

[edited by: Syzygy at 3:31 pm (utc) on Feb. 16, 2007]

[Quadrille]

That is not right.

Royalty free is usually a license to reproduce the image x times, where x may be one or infinity.

But the image is still owned by someone else, and therefore you specifically DO NOT have any rights to do anything OTHER than reproduce it, unless stated.

But don't lets argue; read the small print; it'll be clear :)

[Syzygy]

Sorry Quadrille, you are misinformed.

Look at just about any printed advert and you'll see stock images bought from a library. Invariably you'll see that these images have been creatively altered to suit the environment they are applied to.

It doesn't matter whether the stock images you purchase are royalty free, rights managed or whatever, you can do what you wish to them. This is the whole point.

Libraries such as Getty, Image Source, Jupiter, Ingram et al, make a point of displaying the work of their more adventurous clients (usually ad/marketing agencies) - the ones who have bought the aforementioned images - in order to show off the creative possibilities of the images in their libraries! Indeed, Getty actually has a client magazine devoted to profiling such work...

Syzygy

[edited by: Syzygy at 6:53 pm (utc) on Feb. 16, 2007]