Several days ago, Getty Images announced that it was making a large portion of the creative work it represents “free” for certain “non-commercial” websites to use. While many bloggers applauded the move on Twitter, most photographers across the internet decried the move, despite Getty’s comment to the contrary. What should you know about this move and why should it matter to you, as a contributor or as a stock image user?
As you may know, I’m a photographer who licenses stock imagery. This license that someone buys, allows them to use a certain image in a certain way. However, there is a large group out there on internet who may be using my and others’ images illegally, so I wanted to discuss image usage on blogs today.
My business is licensing creative imagery to designers and other buyers that need content for their work. I don’t “sell pictures” – what stock photographers do is create a license, a set of terms, that grants certain rights to another to use a piece of content. Now, licenses to use my work are not free, despite the misleading catch-all title of “royalty free” for this general style of licensing. The royalties I receive for my work supports my business and […]
About a year or so ago, Pinterest and copyright issues became a topic of discussion. If you need more details on how Pinterest works and how it affects the photographer or stock contributor, you can read the aforementioned linked post. Long story short, a user “pins” (copies) any image they find on the internet to the Pinterest servers, for viewing, sharing and hotlinking by the site’s users. Yesterday, iStockphoto announced that they are going to officially maintain an active presence […]
