It should be no surprise to anyone that currently 99% of the images licensed annually are being licensed as Royalty Free. And many of the images licensed as Rights Managed are also licensed with more or less unlimited right to use them in a variety of different ways.
The simple fact is that any editorial or marketing piece produced today may be delivered in a variety of different ways over a long period of time. Customers simply don’t want to take the risk that plans will change and somehow an image will be used beyond a narrow and specific RM license making them liable for unexpected fees and penalties. On the other hand, only in rare instances can buyers justify paying the kind of fees those who license their images as RM used to expect for unlimited rights, particularly when there are so many good quality RF images available.
Recently a photographer blogged that “We had a National Building Contractor that wanted a quote to purchase all rights to our work. Is anyone doing this? We did not take that client on but it would be of interest to see if other photographers would have done this, any thoughts?”
The photographer rejected the job because he felt that in order to do the job he had to give up his copyright. That may have been the case, but from the way it was described it sounded like when he heard the term “all rights” there was no more discussion and he walked away.
Often when a client uses the term "all rights" what he really means is that he wants to be able us the image in any way he can think of in the future without paying an additional fee. He may want to use it in an ad, on a poster, a print for his wall, or give it to some publication that is going to do a story about his company. If something like that comes up he wants to be free to use the image.
The buyer doesn't necessarily want to "own the copyright" (probably doesn't know what copyright is) and he may not care if the photographer makes other uses of the picture.
So the first thing to consider is WHAT DOES THE CLIENT REALLY MEAN BY ALL RIGHTS. Get specific. You'll be amazed at the answers you get.
Instead of getting upset every time a client says "all rights" try to identify the ways he might conceivably want to use the image in the future. Keep in mind that there will undoubtedly be a lot of Internet use even if he doesn't know it yet. There may be no likelihood whatsoever that the client will want to use the picture in a major print ad (which would justify a very high all right fee).
In today's world most customers don't want to pay an additional fee each time they make an additional use of an image. Keeping track of new usages is too complicated. Thus, if the photographer doesn't want to dramatically limit the number of customers he is willing work for, he must try to make his best estimate of all the ways the image might be used and charge accordingly for those rights up front.
For more on this subject check out RM:
Adapting To The New Realities and
Time To Retire RM Pricing