Rights Managed: All of Science Faction’s Images are “Rights Managed” (RM), whether licensed from this website or from our second distributor, Getty Images. With RM pictures, license fees are directly related to the image’s intended exposure including the size on a page – printed or electronic; the number of “copies” to be printed; the intended audience & usage; the physical territory & language distribution; & the length of time the image will be “in circulation”.

License Fee Calculations: A fair amount of information is requested when you wish to license an image. The more you know about the picture’s usage, the better the rights can be carved out and defined for you. If usage is unknown, the license fee will automatically revert to a higher dollar figure to cover a broader range of possible rights.

Getting a Price: This website calculates your fee within seconds, if you’re a registered user. Our prices are competitive and based on standard industry rates. You can also contact our sales team by calling 1-206-949-0527 or emailing . Discounts are possible when you’re using many images.

Paying for Usage: There are three ways to pay: By credit card, with PayPal, or via a business credit account issued to your company. The third option requires a credit application and could take up to several weeks to set up.

Getting your Picture: With rights determined, and payment either made or arranged, the website releases a full-size, 55MB RGB copy of your image for immediate download. We can also supply the image in larger or smaller sizes, arrange for pickup via our online FTP site, or courier CD or DVD disks straight to your office (for an extra charge).

Exclusive Licenses (optional): One big advantage of using an RM image is the ability to reserve it for exclusive use in an industry and/or territory, ensuring that your company’s competitors aren’t using the same image at the same time. This is particularly important to advertisers and product packagers. Exclusive rights are more expensive than non-exclusive rights, and require a 24-48 hour “rights check” to make sure the required exclusivity is actually available. To inquire about exclusivity, contact or call 1-206-949-0527.

Photo Credits: Editorial usage fees are much lower than commercial usage fees for two important reasons: 1) images are documenting a story rather than helping sell a product and 2) editorial use always requires a photo credit alongside the image. Credit lines are not optional in editorial situations. They are a valued part of the deal, and there can be substantial penalties when editorial-use credits are omitted or buried. Artists can get very upset when they’re denied credit for their work in lower-paying, editorial situations such as magazines, newspapers, textbooks and documentary websites.

Bulk Rights: If you’re going to use a picture in many ways and for a long time, it’s very advantageous to purchase all possible rights up front and at once. Why? Re-usage fees and/or licensing individual usages separately will always end up costing more in the long run.

Royalty Free (RF): Science Faction does not license images on an RF basis. While sometimes RF images are less expensive to use, that’s not always the case. RF images are not, in fact, royalty-free. This is just the term the industry has given images that have only broad & non-exclusive rights for license. Be aware that royalty free images are owned & utilized by many others & cannot be reserved for exclusive use. Once purchased, there is no restriction on the number of times a royalty free image can be used by the same company. However, royalty free images may not be used in products that are for resale, such as t-shirts, stationery, calendars, etc. If more than ten people are going to have access to RF images a seat license upgrade is required.

If you have any questions, please contact .