I
thought I would write a post regarding copyright. I see a lot of people
asking about copyright – and even photographers giving images that are
copyright free... Oh the wonderful world of copyright can be quite confusing.
When I take a picture, regardless of what I take a picture – the copyright belongs to me. There is nothing that I can do about this – this is the law, and the laws are there to protect us just like to protect music artists etc.
The law states that as a photographer – this means we have the legal right to use, sell and edit the images.
When I see photographers say that they “give copyright” or “copyright free” images, then this means in theory, you could use the images to set up as a photographer, edit the images and sell them to make profit. However, I’m sure that if you did this they wouldn’t be happy at all! But by giving “copyright free images” this is basically what they’re saying you can do with them...
So, what does it actually mean when you get “copyright free” images. It means you can print them, you can put them online, on facebook, share them with friends, make cards and Christmas presents etc but you can not sell them – and you can not edit them. Wait – you don’t want to do that to the images – then you are in theory being “miss sold” what you are buying.
Regardless a lot of photographers will call it “Print License” or “High Resolution Images” or “License to Print” which are exactly the same as what is listed above. You can print them anywhere, you can put them online, share with friends, make cards or Christmas Presents – but can not sell them – or edit them.
It is very confusing when words are banded around with their wrong meaning! So make sure you understand and you know what you can or cannot do with the images you purchase.
When I take a picture, regardless of what I take a picture – the copyright belongs to me. There is nothing that I can do about this – this is the law, and the laws are there to protect us just like to protect music artists etc.
The law states that as a photographer – this means we have the legal right to use, sell and edit the images.
When I see photographers say that they “give copyright” or “copyright free” images, then this means in theory, you could use the images to set up as a photographer, edit the images and sell them to make profit. However, I’m sure that if you did this they wouldn’t be happy at all! But by giving “copyright free images” this is basically what they’re saying you can do with them...
So, what does it actually mean when you get “copyright free” images. It means you can print them, you can put them online, on facebook, share them with friends, make cards and Christmas presents etc but you can not sell them – and you can not edit them. Wait – you don’t want to do that to the images – then you are in theory being “miss sold” what you are buying.
Regardless a lot of photographers will call it “Print License” or “High Resolution Images” or “License to Print” which are exactly the same as what is listed above. You can print them anywhere, you can put them online, share with friends, make cards or Christmas Presents – but can not sell them – or edit them.
It is very confusing when words are banded around with their wrong meaning! So make sure you understand and you know what you can or cannot do with the images you purchase.
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