Copyright & Stock Images

Saturday, September 20th, 2008 | Filed under Articles, Resources

When you create a photomanip, you naturally need photos to start out with. Ideally, you take those pictures yourself with your digital camera or use scans of “analog” pictures or whatever else you can get your hands on that will fit on your scanner. But there will always be instances, when you can’t get what you need yourself, be it because you don’t have a camera handy and can’t scan the object you need either (it’s just tough getting that castle to fit on the scanner) or maybe the object you need just isn’t available (you need a castle but there just is none for miles). This is where copyright laws come into play.

Copyright “in a nutshell”

It may sound like a lot at first, but copyright can actually be condensed to a nutshell if you want to be on the safe side (source: copyright.gov):

• Every image that exists is copyrighted.
  No one needs to register their copyright with the authorities, no name or date is required to be printed on it. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Copyright can expire after a certain period of the author’s death, but that’s according to US law at least 70 years (after the author’s death), so I wouldn’t count on it. Individual countries have laws that differ from this, but as far as I know there is no country that leaves copyright up for chance. So to be safe, always assume that anything you find on the internet and especially in magazines/books/etc. is copyrighted!
• To use copyrighted work, you need special permission from the copyright holder.
  The copyright holder in the case of images usually is the photographer, but publishing companies etc. may also be considered copyright holders especially when people of public interest are on the pic, on top of that, anyone who has worked on an image holds some rights to it, too (which is good for us, isnt it? ;)). Special permission can be obtained by writing an email to the copyright holder (if you know who he is) and asking for it (nicely!) or it can be obtained by using work that was “designed” to be used as material for others to base their work on. This is called Stock Photography (more further down).

Basically, this means that you cannot use the pic of Angelina Jolie you just “found” in some fan forum because neither you nor the person who put it up there have the copyright to it. And if the person who put it online cut her from the background and now says “I put work into it and I gracously allow you to use it”, it’s still not going to work because the alteration of the original photo is a copyright breach to begin with. The same goes for screenshots from movies or games as well as the characters.

Special Permission –> “Stock Photography”

The term “Stock Photography” encompasses all photographs that are meant to be used in other people’s work. This can be photomanipulation (which would fall under the legalese term of “derivative works”) just as well as use in webdesign either as altered graphics in the header of a page or as pictures to illustrate articles (the way you see in news papers online and offline). Stock photos come as free pictures to use as you please wherever you please just as well as under different licenses outlining the terms of use – stock images are free or need to be purchased. Different licenses included commercial and non-commercial use, for use in manips or on websites and basically for anything you can think of. This is where it does get complicated.

Therefore it is all the more important that you as the manipulator (who doesn’t want to find himself on someone’s bad side) know what you’re in for before you use someone else’s pics. Here are some tips to keep in mind to make everyone’s lives easier:

• If you find a site that offers Royalty Free Stock (paid or free doesn’t matter), make sure to read the Terms of Use most carefully.
  They need to be giving you the right to alter the downloaded picture and use it either non-commercially or commercially (depending on what you need/want). There will be certain limitations such as no reproduction, redistribution etc (which basically just means that they don’t want the pics sold on another stock site or printed on mugs the way they are and then sold as that would be quite unfair seeing as the photographer could be doing the latter himself — Changing colours/levels/saturation etc is NOT a substantial enough alteration to get you out of this either! — this includes “stock from stock” such as creating premade backgrounds or Brushes!) and in most cases of free stock, credit must be given somewhere near the final product and the photographer often wants to get a link to where his work was used. Fair enough, isn’t it?
• Always give proper credit.
  Now we could definitely find a thousand opinions on what “proper” credit is. Personally, I try to go “by the book”: I always credit stock providers from dA by name so people can find their stock, too. Stock from other sites gets credited according to their rules (Terms of Use) with a link to the website and (if necessary) a link to the photographer.
• If you’re unsure if you can use something for what you plan on using it for, ask!
  If the photographer doesn’t answer (in time) then don’t use the pic, don’t just go “he doesn’t care or he would’ve answered”. Nothing is quite as frustrating as putting work into a manip and have someone tell you to get rid of it…
• Don’t believe just anyone who claims that it’s “alright” to use a certain image.
  Just because someone is an admin in a forum doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about. I’ve read people claim that anything without a watermark is okay to use for whatever you want cos if it doesn’t say so it is not copyrighted… this is utter bullsh**. Angelina Jolie or her publishing company and photographer may not have time to go after everyone who makes a wallpaper out of a studio shot and frankly they may not even care if you do use it, but that doesn’t mean it’s legal. I’ve also read (more than once) that as soon as you alter a pic it kinda “becomes yours”. That is like saying “sure I nicked that dress from the store, but I cut a hole in it, so now it’s mine and I can gracously allow you to wear it”. Big publishers and photographers whose images get abused a lot due to the subject being famous may have learned to live with fans, but do not expect such leniency from someone who is working hard on an image and stumbles across it somewhere on the internet… Trust me, you do not want to be on the receiving end of that, especially not with the excuse of “I was too naive to ask where the pic came from”.

So, where do I get these so called Stock Photos?

There are quite a few legal sites out there that offer free stock – again a reminder: always read the Terms of Use of websites or the Rules laid out by individuals and follow them.

• Stock Art Gallery on deviantArt – here it is really important that you find the individual stock provider’s rules. They are usually located in the journal, most of the times on the userpage, sometimes on the individual pictures in the artist’s comment. Be sure to credit and notify the stocker once you have used their image. Some need to be asked for commercial use outside of dA, some for commercial use in general.
• sxc.hu – you will have to register, but it’s free and gives you access to almost all images on the site (sometimes photographers want to know beforehand where their pic is going to be used, in that case instead of the full view, a contact form will show). Be careful to remember if the images were tagged with special licenses. They may require you to credit the photographer by name and/or notify him on top of the usual link to sxc.hu as credit.
• morguefile.com is similar to sxc.hu, offering royalty free images free of charge.
• photocase.com offers royalty free images that you have to either pay for or that you can purchase by using credits obtained through logging in on a Monday (3 credits / Monday) or getting your own stock images onto the site (they’re really picky though).
• istock.com offers different licenses that can be purchased for credits (you pay x amount of dollars to get y amount of credits), just be sure to read them carefully and pick the one you need
• dreamstime.com offers images that you need to pay for as well as a free stock section. Stock downloaded there is limited in its use, but at a maximum of 10.000 copies sold that contain that work it is still a fair offer. Be sure to read the Terms of Use here especially as I have not previously used their services myself and cannot speak from experience.

_{If you know any more sites, I’d love to take a look and add them to the list}

Free Stock vs. Purchasing Stock

Whether you want to pay money for stock is completely up to you. From experience, there are some pros and cons: if you pay for stock and a license, the terms of use are usually laid out very, very clearly and it is unlikely for you to get into trouble afterwards, especially when it comes to commercial projects.

New stockers on dA sometimes have practically no info in their rules that would put you in a position to predict their reaction to a certain use and always having to ask may get tiresome. Some also tend to change their rules a lot and their requirements may sound like they want you to jump through hoops (I just “love” it when they want to know beforehand if and for what their stock may eventually be used – I simply don’t know most of the times, so how should I tell?). I tend to avoid those altogether.

Also, it is a good idea to avoid “premade backgrounds” and in some instances Photoshop brushes, as these things have to be made from scratch without resources offered by other stockers – offering these kinds of things breaches the usually attached rule to not redistribute the stock as stock/resources. So only use these when you can be sure they’re legit.

But even with all those negatives, free stock has its charm: being free of charge is a big plus, especially if you’re “just” manipping as a hobby and don’t need to worry so much about licenses, but more about your financial health ;)

Please Note

I am not a lawyer, I’m just a photomanipulator who has run into her fair share of legalese and tries to share her experiences! These points up there are neither complete nor absolute – there are exceptions to copyright and stock use rules, the ones listed are the most common. If you keep to the golden rule “anything is copyrighted (and thus off limits) until I am explicitly told otherwise by someone who can actually do so (the photographer, not some forum admin somewhere)” you should be fine. Always remember that you are responsible for what you use, so try to be cautious.

Tags: awareness, copyright, photomanipulation, stock

3 Comments to Copyright & Stock Images