A lot of people think that all images on the web are free for anyone to use. The aim of this article is to separate the wheat from the chaff – describe the difference between images that are absolutely free (public domain), “royalty free" and “rights protected". Furthermore, some of the options available to you for using images from the web – namely Public Domain, Stock Photography and Assignment photography – will be outlined.
Public Domain vs Rights protected vs Royalty Free:
Public Domain images are free for any sort of use. Wikipedia has a great article on them available on their site so I'm going to try not to duplicate their useful content (which includes a list of sources for public domain images). What I will say is that according to copyright laws, any photographs taken on assignment working for the United States government or any photographs available for download on US government sites are automatically public domain.
Right Protected images are bought with a specific time limit for how long the image can be used for and with a specific project in mind (e.g. Use of an image on billboards in Berlin, Germany for 5 weeks). The time period and specific use are negotiated beforehand with either the photographer or a middleman. For an additional fee others will not be able to use the same image during the time period. This is useful for big businesses who want to advertise effectively.
Royalty free images are bought for a once-off fee. They can be used in as many ways as the buyer wants. Others can also use the same image if they too purchase it. Higher resolution images (used for print publications or posters as opposed to on websites) usually cost more. A worthy not at this point is
http://www.sxc.hu who offer free (with certain restrictions) royalty-free images.
Options available to you:
Assignment photography usually means going out and hiring a photographer to shoot certain shots. The only exception to this that I know of is
http://www.africapic.com who combine assignment photography and stock photography – assignments of a certain nature can be requested and the resulting images become available for download.
Stock photography is usually the better option for those who:
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Want high quality images (good public domain images are usually hard to come by).
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Are on a tight schedule (images are available for instant download).
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Do not really know what image they want and want to look at the options.
To conclude, it should be clear that for most users, stock photography is the option for using images off the web (bear in mind that some stock images are free!). Rights managed photography is useful for those who don't want their competitors using the same image.
