So if I bought the same photo from iStock, DT and StockXpert I could get a print run of 499,999 from iStock, another print run from DT of 499,999 and then yet another from StockXpert for 249,999?

Ding, ding, ding!

I think we have a winner.

There have been many, many times when I have had an obscure photo (that hardly sells at all) all of a sudden sell simultaneously on a few different sites.  I could never figure out what the buyers were doing, but I figured that they were trying to get around something.

Well, now I finally know what they are doing.  They are trying to avoid having to purchase an extended license.

Just a curiosity, what is the print run of one edition if Time or Newsweek or National Geographic?

Just a curiosity, what is the print run of one edition if Time or Newsweek or National Geographic?

Time magazine has a circulation of between 3.4 million and 5.4 million.

Newsweek has a circulation of between 2.6 million and 4.2 million.

National Geographic about 4.7 million.

See here http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question70671.html or here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_(magazine)

Here are some stats for other mags:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_magazines_by_circulation

AARP magazine has a circulation of over 24 million!

I'm in graphic design and do ad runs in various newspapers. Is that circulation (ie expected readership) or the actual print run of the paper itself? there can be a huge difference.

For example... the paper prints one paper, but a family of 10 read it, then it gets left a the local coffee shop where 25 other people read it during the day. So we go from 1 print to 35 readership (circulation) - Newspapers use this to pump up there numbers so potential advertisers think its way better than it really is.