Understanding Stock Image Rights

Let’s say you’re building your company’s new website and use Google Images to find the perfect picture for your home page — the one image that somehow manages to simultaneously capture both the spirit and personality of your business in a single, beautiful frame. You save the picture to your hard drive and upload it to your site. After all, you found the picture on the internet. That means it’s free, right?!

In fact, this isn’t the case. And if you aren’t careful about the way you manage the rights of the images you use on your website, in your social-networking campaigns, and as a part of all your other marketing campaigns, you could find yourself liable for legal damages resulting from the misuse of copyrighted material.

How can you protect yourself and ensure that the images you’re using are legit? First, let’s look at some background information on how images and other creative works are protected, and then we’ll explore different options for appropriately sourcing graphics for your website and marketing materials.

Essentially, all creative content is presumed to be copyrighted upon creation, according to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and the U.S. Copyright Act. In other words, if you take a picture, write a blog post, or create any other type of content, it is automatically copyrighted and protected under these statutes. You don’t need to file a permit to claim copyright status, and you don’t need to explicitly state that you own the copyright license to your content. It is, simply, your protected content from the moment of creation.

The reason these statutes exist is to protect the financial interests of the people who have created the content in the first place. Although it may not seem like a big deal to swipe an image file from Google Images or any other website you come across, professional photographers often rely on the income generated through the sale of these images to pay their own bills. And, as you’re basically stealing their income, they have the right to go after you in the courts to seek financial damages.

For your sake, it’s important to understand the terminology surrounding stock imagery, and the particular legal rights each of these terms convey. Here are a few words you may hear surrounding the use of images online:

• Royalty-free — Although many people presume that this phrase implies that an image may be used free of charge, it actually means that the image may be used without paying a separate fee each time you use it (in accordance with the terms of its stated license). For example, if you purchase a royalty-free image through a stock image provider such as Getty Images or iStockphoto (see below), you may use the image as often as you like after paying the initial license fee.
• Rights-managed — If you’re simply looking for stock photography to fill out your website, you won’t likely need to worry about rights-managed images. But for awareness’ sake, know that rights-managed images specify the exact terms of use allowed at the time of purchase and can include restrictions on where the image may be used (both geographically and in specific types of media), how often it may be used, the length of time for which the license is valid, and so on.
• Creative Commons — The Creative Commons license is a relatively new creation that allows artists and photographers to specify the exact terms under which their content may be used. Images released under the Creative Commons license aren’t necessarily free, although some publishers specify that images may be used freely as long as proper attribution is given.

In all cases, the images you use from these sources are governed by “licenses” that specify the specific rights you have to each image and the ways in which you may use it. No matter what type of image you use, it is your responsibility to ensure that you’re using the image in accordance with the license type you’ve purchased — otherwise, you expose yourself to possible legal action.

When sourcing images, be sure to ask yourself the following questions to be sure you’re satisfying all necessary image licensing requirements:

• Am I using this image for personal or commercial use? Many images can be used freely for personal purposes (e.g., wedding announcements, holiday letters, etc.), but nearly all business-related activities online (including social-networking profiles, email newsletters, and so on) are classified as “commercial use.”
• Am I using this image in accordance with its stated license? Specific licenses may restrict when and where an image may be used, whether or not it may be modified, and how attribution must be given. If there are any elements of an image license you don’t understand, seek legal counsel to be sure you’re using the image appropriately.
• Have all necessary releases been granted for this image? If the image you’re using features a model or product that isn’t public domain, be sure all parties have involved have signed releases to transfer all rights to the original copyright holder. Even if you’ve purchased an image license from a legitimate source, you could still open yourself up to legal action if the models or product owners involved haven’t signed off.

If this all sounds intimidating, don’t worry. Although it’s important to understand image rights and the legal repercussions that may result from misusing graphics, sourcing images for your website is usually simple and straightforward. Here are a few websites you can use to find legitimately sourced images for your business pages:

iStockphoto – One of the most widely-used sources of royalty-free stock images, iStockphoto offers clearly defined standard and extended licenses for use in a wide variety of scenarios.  Most website design usages will fall under the terms of the standard license, which offers a guarantee that all images meet applicable copyright guidelines for a very modest fee.

Stock.Xchng — Owned by HAAP Media, a subsidiary of Getty Images, Stock.Xchng is “the leading free stock photo site” online today. Although all images found on the site may be used without paying a fee, the company still enforces some restrictions on how and where they may be used. Be careful to check the specific license terms before using images from this site, and be aware that the popularity of the site means that the image you’ve chosen has likely been used frequently on other websites already.

Creative Commons on Flickr — You’re probably already familiar with Flickr, as it’s one of the largest photo-sharing websites online. However, you may not be aware that many of the users that have uploaded photos to this site also make them available for commercial use under the terms of the Creative Commons license. Check out the Creative Commons directory on Flickr to learn more about the specific types of photo licenses offered and to find thousands of free images that can be used on your website (with proper attribution, of course).

Using resources like these to source images for your website can take much of the hassle out of navigating image license rights and attribution requirements. It also protects your business’s legal and financial interests, while ensuring that artists around the world are properly compensated for the work they produce.

Image: s_falkow