Stop! Can An Image Of That Subject Be Licensed?

Posted on 10/8/2014 by Jim Pickerell | Printable Version | Comments (3)

Did you know that it is illegal to license for commercial use pictures of hundreds of the most popular, beautiful and interesting venues around the world? In many cases it is also illegal to use such pictures for editorial purposes.

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Comments

Charles Cecil Posted Oct 8, 2014
Jim: Postcards of the Iwo Jima Memorial and the Korean War Memorial are widely available around the D.C. area, certainly a commercial use. What should we conclude?--that they are illegal, or that the printer/distributor or the photographer somehow got permission? Does "commercial use" include selling fine art prints at craft fairs? Chuck Cecil

Charles Cecil Posted Oct 8, 2014
Jim: I forgot to say many thanks for that really comprehensive list from Shutterstock.

Jim Pickerell Posted Oct 13, 2014
Charles: I suspect that the publisher of the postcards got permission from the copyright holder of the monument to use the image. In some cases the copyright holder may have not bothered to pursue the infringer.

When it comes to fine art prints as craft fairs I suspect no one will ever come after you for personal use, but technically it is illegal in the same sense that if someone decided to sell a lot of one of your images at a craft fair you might want to go after them.

The bigger issue is that because there are known problems with the subject matter on this list many distributors simply won't put such images into their collections.

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