whats the deal with Royalty Free images??

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

There has been a question of whether GI & MF, among other ever have the same images in their library.. I stumbled upon this today...exact same images in both catalogs.. are royalty free images different?? I would guess not, If I purchased said image from getty, whats to stop MF from coming after me with a threatening letter??

i'd post screen shots, but don't want my hand slapped today, if your curios visit both sites and search chakra.

[SoylentGreen]

This is a good point, I think.

Some folks have brought up the subject of exclusive agreements on the forum before.
I think that the images that you mentioned are probably licensed non-exclusively.
So, the photogs can market the images to whomever they want, but they probably makes less money from licensing.
It's likely difficult to chase infringements on these; but they might try it.  It's basically a sleazy business.
Now that I think of it, it's a good idea to search around to find out if others are selling the image if one is accused of infringement.

S.G.

[photographer]

There has been a question of whether GI & MF, among other ever have the same images in their library.. I stumbled upon this today...exact same images in both catalogs.. are royalty free images different?? I would guess not, If I purchased said image from getty, whats to stop MF from coming after me with a threatening letter??

i'd post screen shots, but don't want my hand slapped today, if your curios visit both sites and search chakra.

Sometimes (as in this case) other agencies use Getty and MF to subdistribute images. Getty and MF represent the agency but the images arent part of any Getty particular collection. Getty and MF have their own 'house' collections and these are the ones they chase.
Its up to subagents to do their own chasing as they will be the ones who track all the licenses of a particular image.