Meckler credits Getty Images' refusal to distribute Jupiterimages stills several years ago as largely responsible for the current upward trend. He mentions the efforts of company staff and the quality of Jupiters' rights-managed collections as other reasons for growth, emphasizing Workbook and FoodPix as the top brands.

Perhaps most important is the fact that the rights-managed category is not being cannibalized by micro-payment stock in the same way as royalty-free. According to Meckler, "the rights-managed model is impervious to the growth of microstock, because of rights issues and the quality demanded by the typical rights-managed buyer."

He points out that the rights-managed licensing model still accounts for nearly half of all image sales. When Getty Images announced its 2006 revenues, CEO Jonathan Klein estimated that the company's rights-managed sales accounted for 30% of all 2006 still-image sales. Others put rights-managed imagery at 40% of the commercial stills market.

The commercial rights-managed segment may be large, but Selling Stock estimates put Jupiterimages' share of it at less than 1%. Getty Images brought in close to half of this segment's roughly $625 million in total revenues in 2006, and Corbis accounted for approximately 15%.

Still, Jupiterimages already generates more than twice the royalty-free revenues of Corbis. If this newly reported rights-managed growth holds, the third-largest stock business may begin to encroach on its larger competitors in this arena. "We should be able to continue to take the rights-managed market share," promises Meckler.