When you need photos or illustrations, but it’s long and expensive to make your own, photostocks come to the rescue. Learn about the principles of work of the platforms, the possibilities of media content management and, of course, about the best free photostocks and paid image banks.
What is a photostock
A photostock is a place where graphic content is stored and/or sold. Photos, illustrations, videos and other content are posted by authors for sale or made available for free. Essentially, microstocks and photobanks are intermediaries between the content creator and the user.
There are hundreds of thousands of works by amateurs and professionals on these sites. Any visitor who needs images for commercial or personal use can find what they need in 10-15 minutes. On paid resources, the price of media content ranges from a few cents to tens of dollars, depending on the level of the photographer or illustrator.
Stocks of photos and videos are chosen more often than creating images themselves or hiring photographers. And there are three reasons for this:
it’s faster: there’s no need to find locations, hold castings, select equipment, spend time shooting and processing or explaining tasks to other professionals;
it is cheaper: there is no need to invest in equipment, pay wages to a staff member or freelancer;
it is more convenient: as a rule, all the works are distributed by sections, many resources have filters for different parameters for quick search, and the image can be downloaded in 1-2 clicks.
However, when searching for and using images, many people do not think about checking licenses for use. And for good reason!
Why it is important to check licenses
All media content is protected by copyright, which begins when the work is created and ends only 50-70 years after the author’s death. If you intentionally or unknowingly use a photo or illustration illegally, you can become a few thousands poorer: the author will sue and probably win, but you will have to pay a large sum.
The court granted 5 bloggers’ petition for compensation in a dispute with a publishing house.
Tabatha Bundesen was awarded $700,000 in damages when she won a lawsuit against Grenade for using pictures of her celebrity cat out of contract.
Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty paid 2 million rubles for using the photos without permission and without attribution.
Photographer Alexander Andrienko sued a glossy magazine for 50 thousand rubles for unauthorized placement of his photos without permission.
Evgenia Gapchinskaya won a court case for copyright infringement. The indemnity for the illegal use of the images amounted to 40 thousand hryvnias.
So always pay attention to the license given to the image.
Types of licenses for images
It is important to know not so much about licenses, as about the opportunities they provide and the obligations involved:
Creative Commons
(free use of content without negotiation with the author, but with some restrictions). Varieties of :
Creative Commons Zero (CC0).
Content is allowed to:
- modify;
- distribute;
- Use for commercial purposes without attribution (the license means that the creator has waived the copyright)
CC Attribution (CC-BY)
Images:
- Acceptable to edit; take free images for blogging as a basis for creating other visual content;
- suitable for commercial purposes;
- Must be provided with attribution
CC Attribution Share Alike (CC-BY-SA)
Content use implies:
- editability;
- Use for profit;
- Attribution;
- automatically receiving the same license for anything you create based on content with a CC-BY-SA license. That means the new images can be redistributed, modified, placed in advertising campaigns, and used for other commercial purposes
CC Attribution No Derivatives (CC-BY-ND)
Visual Content: - Freely used for profit;
- Must be submitted with permission from the author;
- may not be modified
CC Attribution Non-Commercial (CC-BY-NC)
License:
- Allows use of images for informational and aesthetic purposes;
- and prohibits for commercial purposes;
- Obliges to indicate the author
CC Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (CC-BY-NC-SA)
Images:
- Permission to edit;
- prohibited for commercial use;
- derivatives based on it receive the same license;
- used with the author’s name
CC Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)
Media content with this license:
- may not be used for enrichment;
- Can be edited, with derivatives automatically receiving the same license;
- It is important to use attribution
Royalty-Free (used for paid images)
Royalty-Free.
The license gives you the right to use the content unlimitedly but not more than 500 thousand times on different media. At the same time:
- you are not allowed to place the image on items for sale and where you can make a profit (in a book as illustrations is allowed);
- Together with the content you acquire the right to use it.
Extended Royalty-Free
Extended Royalty-Free license with no limit on the number of uses
Rights-Managed
This license gives you the right to access the content a strictly specified number of times