First British Rights (also known as First British Serial Rights) is the traditional form of licence granted to commissioners of photography.

Images in the public domain lack copyright protection and may be freely used. This arises on expiry of copyright 70 years after the death of the author.

Creative Commons is a form of licensing developed by the Creative Commons Foundation, which aims to facilitate free sharing of creative works within limits specified by the license terms.

A rights-managed (RM) license is one where specific, defined reproduction rights are granted to the client, usually limited to a set period of time.

A royalty free (RF) license grants a broad bundle of reproduction rights to a client. Typically this will include unlimited repeat use in any media, at any size and for any purpose, by the client.

Copyright law permits some uses without the need to ask permission of the copyright holder, and these specific instances are called 'fair dealing' or 'fair use'.

A 'copyright grab' is a contract term that acquires an assignment of copyright or a licence of such wide scope that it removes most or all control of the image from the copyright holder.

A license is a contractual agreement that permits usage of copyright work in exchange for something. This can be payment of a fee, but may be anything of 'valuable consideration'.

There are three different methods and it is essential to use the correct and appropriate method in order to avoid unintended consequences.

In general, yes, they must, and if they use your copyright work without your agreement they commit an unlawful act.

There are a few exceptions:-