What is the difference between licensed and unlicensed images

Royalty free images can still result in copyright infringement penalties, if their found to be on your site illegally. Public Domain: Images in the public domain can be used without restriction for any purpose. Because nobody owns or controls the rights to the image. Creative Commons CC : This is a public copyright license where the original creator of the image has decided to allow others share, use, and build on the original free of charge.

Note that some public domain and creative commons images require attribution or links back to the original image source, so be sure to check requirements of use.

These are simply the most common licenses, so be aware that there are additional types of licenses in circulation.

If you come across an image with a different license, be sure to do your research before posting it. While understanding the difference between licenses and always attributing your images can help you maintain legal image use, you can still run into trouble when images are licensed incorrectly. For example, a person may buy a CC image for his or her own purpose, but then upload it to an image-sharing site and label it with a CC license.

Fortunately, there are options for those who want to eliminate the risk of violating copyright laws. Here are a few ideas to help you along the way. Buy the rights to the images. All Posts , photography , business ,. Gurpreet Singh on Jun 18, 7 min read. What is a License? Pricing Image licensing is one way to earn money as a photographer. Different types of licensing can be broken into the following categories: Commercial Rights Commercial rights enable the buyer to use your images for commercial purposes in communications designed to sell their products or services such as a catalog, brochure, or on some other form of advertisement.

Exclusive Rights Also known as Serial Rights, this is when you grant proprietary permission to use a specific image to a client.

First Rights First rights constitute the permission to use the image first off, and then you are free to resell your image at a later time. Non-Exclusive Rights Non-exclusive rights mean that you can sell your images to more than one person or entity. Royalty Free In Rights Managed, a client has to pay the agreed license fee on the expiry of the license if they want it to be renewed.

Creative Commons If you are looking to gain exposure or contribute your images so that anyone can use them, Creative Commons licenses let you define the level of access you give others to use your photos.

Copyright Free License A copyright-free license is one type of photography license where the photographer gives away the copyright of the image for free. Putting together a Licensing Agreement Coming to the whole licensing process, it begins with you sending the client its description so that the negotiation process can begin. A license description is primarily used for three things: Making an offer to grant the client agreed-upon scope of usage of the images.

The license permits the specified usage of the photos and constraining others. Protecting your images from unlicensed usage. An ideal license description must contain the following: Parties —When describing the photography license, make sure to establish the names of the parties involved; the licensor, licensee, and the End User the party that will ultimately use the image.

Client Education A client who is taking a license for the first time also needs to know about the type and clauses of the contracts. In conclusion: As a professional photographer, building profitable, recurring income streams based on your work is incredibly important, and Licensing your work lets you achieve that. Featured Trending. Stunning Portfolios and Stores built on Pixpa.

Create a professional website. Best Website Builders of How to Create an Online Portfolio. Build a student portfolio website. Professionally designed templates. Best Photo Apps for For example, you may wish to license a video game soundtrack under both a CC license and the GPL, so that it may be used under either set of terms.

A reuser may then choose which set of terms to comply with. Or, for example, you may offer your material to the public under a NonCommercial license, but offer commercial permissions to fee-paying customers. Supplemental agreements: Problems arise when licensors design those terms or arrangements to serve not as separate, alternative licensing arrangements but as supplemental terms having the effect of changing the standard terms within the CC license.

While you may offer separate terms and conditions to other parties, you should not do so in such a way that would neutralize terms of the CC license. Except in the limited situation where more permissions are being granted or license conditions are waived , if the additional arrangement modifies or conflicts with the CC license terms, then the resulting licensing arrangement is no longer a CC licensing arrangement.

To avoid confusing those who may mistakenly believe the work is licensed under standard CC terms, we must insist that in these instances licensors not use our trademarks, names, and logos in connection with their custom licensing arrangement. It should be noted that any agreements you make with other parties only have an effect on the other parties to that agreement, and do not apply to anyone else receiving the licensed material.

For example, if there are terms of use that apply to visitors to your website on which you host CC-licensed material, your terms of use may apply to visitors to that website, but not to anyone who receives copies of the CC-licensed material elsewhere.

Even for the visitors to your website, any separate terms and conditions do not become part of the license—they remain a separate contractual agreement, and violation of this agreement does not constitute copyright infringement. A CC license terminates automatically when its conditions are violated.

For example, if a reuser of CC-licensed material does not provide the attribution required when sharing the work, then the user no longer has the right to continue using the material and may be liable for copyright infringement.

The license is terminated for the user who violated the license. However, all other users still have a valid license, so long as they are in compliance. Under the 4. If you apply a Creative Commons license and a user violates the license conditions, you may opt to contact the person directly to ask them to rectify the situation or consult a lawyer to act on your behalf.

As long as users abide by license terms and conditions, licensors cannot control how the material is used. However, CC licenses do provide several mechanisms that allow licensors to choose not to be associated with their material or to uses of their material with which they disagree.

First, all CC licenses prohibit using the attribution requirement to suggest that the licensor endorses or supports a particular use. Second, licensors may waive the attribution requirement, choosing not to be identified as the licensor, if they wish. Third, if the licensor does not like how the material has been modified or used, CC licenses require that the licensee remove the attribution information upon request.

Finally, anyone modifying licensed material must indicate that the original has been modified. This ensures that changes made to the original material—whether or not the licensor approves of them—are not attributed back to the licensor.

Not all kinds of encryption or access limitations are prohibited by the licenses. Likewise, limiting recipients to a particular set of users for example, by requiring a username and password to enter a site does not restrict further use of the content by the recipients.

In these examples, these things do not prevent the recipient from exercising all of the rights granted by the license, including the right to redistribute it further. If someone is applying effective technological measures to your CC-licensed material that do restrict exercise of the licensed rights such as applying DRM that restricts copying , this is a violation of the license terms unless you have chosen to grant this permission separately.

CC licenses grant permission to use the licensed material in any media or format regardless of the format in which it has been made available. This is true even if you have applied a NoDerivatives license to your work. CC licenses are not revocable.

Once something has been published under a CC license, licensees may continue using it according to the license terms for the duration of applicable copyright and similar rights.

As a licensor, you may stop distributing under the CC license at any time, but anyone who has access to a copy of the material may continue to redistribute it under the CC license terms. While you cannot revoke the license, CC licenses do provide a mechanism for licensors to ask that others using their material remove the attribution information.

You should think carefully before choosing a Creative Commons license. CC offers six core licenses , each of which grants a different set of permissions. Before you use CC-licensed material, you should review the terms of the particular license to be sure your anticipated use is permitted.

If you wish to use the work in a manner that is not permitted by the license, you should contact the rights holder often the creator to get permission first, or look for an alternative work that is licensed in a way that permits your anticipated use. Note that if you use material in a way that is not permitted by the applicable license and your use is not otherwise permitted by an applicable copyright exception or limitation, the license is automatically terminated and you may be liable for copyright infringement, even if you are eligible to have your rights reinstated later.

Before using material offered under a Creative Commons license, you should know that CC licenses only grant permissions needed under copyright and similar rights , and there may be additional rights you need to use it as intended. You should also understand that licensors do not offer warranties or guarantees about the material they are licensing unless expressly indicated otherwise. If you want to ask for a warranty or guarantee about rights to use the material, you should talk with the licensor before using it.

It depends. CC licenses do not license rights other than copyright and similar rights which include sui generis database rights in version 4. For example, they do not license trademark or patent rights, or the publicity, personality, and privacy rights of third parties.

However, licensors agree to waive or not assert any moral rights , publicity rights, personality rights, or privacy rights they themselves hold, to the limited extent necessary to allow exercise of the licensed rights. Any rights outside of the scope of the license may require clearance i. You should make sure you have permission to use any third party content contained in the work you want to use, or that your use is otherwise allowed under the laws of your jurisdiction, particularly in cases such as fair use where your right to use the content depends on the particular context in which you plan to use it.

You may wish to obtain legal advice before using CC-licensed material if you are not sure whether you have all the rights you need. In the somewhat limited circumstances where sui generis database rights apply to your use, special conditions apply and there are more specific considerations you should be aware of. Under 4. A fuller explanation of these variations and related considerations is available in the Data FAQ. If you are looking for material offered under a Creative Commons license, CC Search is a good starting point.

There is also a directory of organizations and individuals who use CC licenses. Be sure to confirm that the material you want to use is actually under a CC license, as search results may sometimes be misleading. While many if not most CC-licensed works are available at no cost, some licensors charge for initial access to CC-licensed works—for example, by publishing CC-licensed content only to subscribers, or by charging for downloads.

However, even if you have paid an access charge, once you have a copy of CC-licensed material, you may make any further uses permitted by the license without paying licensing fees. If you wish to make uses that are not permitted by the license—for example, making a commercial use of an NC-licensed photo—the licensor may charge for those additional rights.

Our porting process involved adapting the international licenses to the legal framework of different jurisdictions, and in that process slight adjustments may have been made that you should make yourself aware of in advance of using the material. You can find more information about the ported licenses in the Jurisdiction Database.

There are currently no ported versions of 4. All official translations of the 4. However, the ported versions of 3. For example, a handful of the ported licenses contain provisions specifying which laws will apply in the event the licensor chooses to enforce the license, and a few of the ported licenses contain forum selection clauses. Contact the rights holders to ask for permission. Otherwise, unless an exception or limitation to copyright applies , your use of the material may violate the Creative Commons license.

If you violate the terms of the license, your rights to use the material will be automatically terminated , and you may be liable for copyright infringement. You need to comply with the license terms if what you are doing would otherwise require permission from the rights holder.

If your use would not require permission from the rights holder because it falls under an exception or limitation, such as fair use, or because the material has come into the public domain, the license does not apply, and you do not need to comply with its terms and conditions. Additionally, if you are using an excerpt small enough to be uncopyrightable, the license does not apply to your use, and you do not need to comply with its terms.

However, if you are using excerpts of CC-licensed material which individually are minimal and do not require license compliance, but together make up a significant copyrightable chunk, you must comply with the license terms.

For example, if you quote many individual lines from a poem across several sections of a blog post, and your use is not a fair use, you must comply with the license even though no individual line would have been a substantial enough portion of the work to require this.

All CC licenses require users to attribute the creator of licensed material, unless the creator has waived that requirement , not supplied a name, or asked that her name be removed.

Additionally, you must retain a copyright notice, a link to the license or to the deed , a license notice, a notice about the disclaimer of warranties, and a URI if reasonable. For versions prior to 4. Though it is not a requirement in 4. You must also indicate if you have modified the work —for example, if you have taken an excerpt, or cropped a photo. It is not necessary to note trivial alterations, such as correcting a typo or changing a font size.

Finally, you must retain an indication of previous modifications to the work. CC licenses have a flexible attribution requirement, so there is not necessarily one correct way to provide attribution. The proper method for giving credit will depend on the medium and means you are using, and may be implemented in any reasonable manner. Additionally, you may satisfy the attribution requirement by providing a link to a place where the attribution information may be found.

While the attribution requirements in the license are the minimum requirement, we always recommend that you follow the best practices for the kind of use you are making. For example, if you are using scientific data marked with CC0, you are not required to give attribution at all, but we recommend that you give the same credit you would give to any other source—not because the license requires it, but because that is the standard for letting others know the source of the data.

The CC website offers some best practices to help you attribute properly, and the CC Australia team has developed a helpful guide to attributing CC-licensed material. Note that the attribution and marking requirements vary slightly among license versions. See here for a chart comparing the specific requirements. You need to be careful not to imply any sponsorship, endorsement, or connection with the licensor or attribution party without their permission.

Wrongfully implying that a creator, publisher, or anyone else endorses you or your use of a work may be unlawful. Creative Commons makes the obligation not to imply endorsement explicit in its licenses. In addition, if the licensor of a work requests that you remove the identifying credit , you must do so to the extent practical. Additionally, when you are using a work that is an adaptation of one or more pre-existing works, you may need to give credit to the creator s of the pre-existing work s , in addition to giving credit to the creator of the adaptation.

You must attribute the creator when you provide material to the public by any means that is restricted by copyright or similar rights. If you are using the material personally but are not making it or any adaptations of it available to others, you do not have to attribute the licensor. Similarly, if you are only distributing the material or adaptations of it within your company or organization, you do not have to comply with the attribution requirement.

Learn more about when compliance with the license is not required. Whether a use is commercial will depend on the specifics of the situation and the intentions of the user.

However, there will always be uses that are challenging to categorize as commercial or noncommercial. CC cannot advise you on what is and is not commercial use. If you are unsure, you should either contact the rights holder for clarification, or search for works that permit commercial uses. CC has a brief guide to interpretation of the NC license that goes into more detail about the meaning of the NC license and some key points to pay attention to.

Additionally, in , Creative Commons published results from a survey on meanings of commercial and noncommercial use generally. When any of the six CC licenses is applied to material, licensees are granted permission to use the material as the license allows, whatever the media or format chosen by the user when it is used or distributed further. This is true even in our NoDerivatives licenses. This means, for example, that even if a creator distributes a work in digital format, you have permission to print and share a hard copy of the same work.

As with most copyright questions, it will depend on applicable law. Generally, to be different works under copyright law, there must be expressive or original choices made that make one work a separate and distinct work from another.

The determination depends on the standards for copyright in the relevant jurisdiction. Under U. Consequently, digitally enhancing or changing the format of a work absent some originality , such as expressive choices made in the enhancement or encoding, will not likely create a separate work for copyright purposes. The creative bar is low, but it is not non-existent. Accordingly, in some jurisdictions releasing a photograph under a CC license will give the public permission to reuse the photograph in a different resolution.

What constitutes an adaptation , otherwise known as a derivative work, varies slightly based on the law of the relevant jurisdiction. Incorporating an unaltered excerpt from an ND-licensed work into a larger work only creates an adaptation if the larger work can be said to be built upon and derived from the work from which the excerpt was taken.

Generally, no derivative work is made of the original from which the excerpt was taken when the excerpt is used to illuminate an idea or provide an example in another larger work. Instead, only the reproduction right of the original copyright holder is being exercised by person reusing the excerpt.

All CC licenses grant the right to reproduce a CC-licensed work for noncommercial purposes at a minimum. For example, a person could make copies of one chapter of an ND-licensed book and not be in violation of the license so long as other conditions of the license are met.

There are exceptions to that general rule, however, when the excerpts are combined with other material in a way that creates some new version of the original from which the excerpt is taken. For example, if a portion of a song was used as part of a new song, that may rise to the level of creating an adaptation of the original song, even though only a portion of it was used and even if that portion was used as-is.

When you receive material under a Creative Commons license, you may not place additional terms and conditions on the reuse of the work. A technological measure is considered an ETM if circumventing it carries penalties under laws fulfilling obligations under Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty adopted on December 20, , or similar international agreements.

Generally, this means that the anti-circumvention laws of various jurisdictions would cover attempts to break it. For example, if you remix a CC-licensed song, and you wish to share it on a music site that places digital copy-restriction on all uploaded files, you may not do this without express permission from the licensor.

However, if you upload that same file to your own site or any other site that does not apply DRM to the file, and a listener chooses to stream it through an app that applies DRM, you have not violated the license. Note that merely converting material into a different format that is difficult to access or is only available for certain platforms does not violate the restriction; you may do this without violating the license terms.

This is not considered to be a prohibited measure, so long as the protection is merely limiting who may access the content, and does not restrict the authorized recipients from exercising the licensed rights. For example, you may post material under any CC license on a site restricted to members of a certain school, or to paying customers, but you may not place effective technological measures including DRM on the files that prevents them from sharing the material elsewhere.

Note that charging for access may not be permitted with NC-licensed material; however, it is not disallowed by the restriction on ETMs. All CC licenses allow redistribution of the unmodified material by any means, including distribution via file-sharing networks. Note that file-trading is expressly considered to be noncommercial for purposes of compliance with the NC licenses.

Barter of NC-licensed material for other items of value is not permitted. It is always a good idea to familiarize yourself with the terms and conditions that apply to any service you are using.

Generally speaking, most social media platforms allow users to keep the copyright they have in their content and ask users to grant them a copyright license to use that content for purposes of providing their service. In some cases, platforms may also ask for a license to use your content in advertising and other promotions of their service. Creative Commons licenses do not allow sublicensing, which means you cannot grant a license to a platform with respect to the rights in any CC-licensed content you do not own.

For example, if you share on Facebook a CC-licensed image you downloaded from Flickr, you cannot grant Facebook any rights to that image under copyright. However, it is unusual for social media platforms to require you to own or control the copyright on all content you share on their sites.

Instead, they often simply require that you have the rights to post it. When sharing CC-licensed content, always remember to provide proper attribution and otherwise comply with the relevant license conditions. If you have received material under a CC license that is encumbered with effective technological measures such as digital rights management or DRM , you may or may not be permitted to break it, depending on the circumstances. By releasing material under a CC license, the licensor agrees not to assert any rights she may have to prevent the circumvention of effective technological measures.

However, if she has uploaded it to a site or other distribution channel that itself applies such measures, that site may have the right to prevent you from breaking them, even though the licensor herself cannot do so. It is possible that CC-licensed material will appear on platforms that impose terms in addition to the copyright license though Creative Commons strongly discourages restrictions that interfere with exercise of the licensed rights.

These additional terms do not form part of the license for the work. For example, if you download CC-licensed material from a site that does not permit downloading, you may be breaking the terms of use of the site, but you are not infringing the CC license.

See our guide to Modifying the CC licenses for more guidance and information. Whether a modification of licensed material is considered an adaptation for the purpose of CC licenses depends primarily on the applicable copyright law.

Copyright law reserves to an original creator the right to create adaptations of the original work. CC licenses that allow for adaptations to be shared—all except BY-ND and BY-NC-ND—grant permission to others to create and redistribute adaptations when doing so would otherwise constitute a violation of applicable copyright law.

Generally, a modification rises to the level of an adaptation under copyright law when the modified work is based on the prior work but manifests sufficient new creativity to be copyrightable, such as a translation of a novel from one language to another, or the creation of a screenplay based on a novel.

Under CC licenses, synching music in timed relation with a moving image is always considered an adaptation, whether or not it would be considered so under applicable law.

Also, under version 4. For more details about adaptations in the database context, see the Data FAQ. Note that all CC licenses allow the user to exercise the rights permitted under the license in any format or medium.

Those changes are not considered adaptations even if applicable law would suggest otherwise. For example, you may redistribute a book that uses the CC BY-NC-ND license in print form when it was originally distributed online, even if you have had to make formatting changes to do so, as long as you do so in compliance with the other terms of the license.

The first question to ask is whether doing so constitutes an adaptation. If the combination does not create an adaptation, then you may combine any CC-licensed content so long as you provide attribution and comply with the NonCommercial restriction if it applies.

If you want to combine material in a way that results in the creation of an adaptation i. The NoDerivatives licenses do not permit remixing except for private use the pre All the other CC licenses allow remixes, but may impose limitations or conditions on how the remix may be used.

For example, if you create a remix with material licensed under a ShareAlike license, you need to make sure that all of the material contributed to the remix is licensed under the same license or one that CC has named as compatible , and you must properly credit all of the sources with the required attribution and license information.

Similarly, if you want to use a remix for commercial purposes , you cannot incorporate material released under one of the NonCommercial licenses. The chart below shows which CC-licensed material can be remixed. To use the chart, find a license on the left column and on the top right row. If there is a check mark in the box where that row and column intersect, then the works can be remixed. See below for details on how remixes may be licensed.

If you make adaptations of material under a CC license i. See the chart below for more details. All licenses after version 1. See the license versions page for details. Since you may not share remixes of these materials at all, there is no compatibility with other licenses. Note that the ND licenses do allow you to reproduce the material in unmodified form together with other material in a collection, as indicated in the next FAQ. When creating an adaptation of material under the license identified in the lefthand column, you may license your contributions to the adaptation under one of the licenses indicated on the top row if the corresponding box is green.

CC does not recommend using a license if the corresponding box is yellow, although doing so is technically permitted by the terms of the license. If you do, you should take additional care to mark the adaptation as involving multiple copyrights under different terms so that downstream users are aware of their obligations to comply with the licenses from all rights holders. All Creative Commons licenses including the version 4.

You may choose a license for the collection, however this does not change the license applicable to the original material. When you include CC-licensed content in a collection, you still must adhere to the license conditions governing your use of the material incorporated. For example, material under any of the Creative Commons NonCommercial licenses cannot be used commercially.

The table below indicates what type of CC-licensed works you may incorporate into collections licensed for commercial and noncommercial uses. Note that the relevant rights may expire at different times. For example, you may have a CC-licensed song where the rights in the musical arrangement expire before the rights in the lyrics. In this case, when the copyright in the music expires, you may use it without being required to comply with the conditions of the CC license ; however, you must still comply with the license if you use the lyrics.

The CC licenses are irrevocable. This means that once you receive material under a CC license, you will always have the right to use it under those license terms, even if the licensor changes his or her mind and stops distributing under the CC license terms.

All of the CC licenses terminate if you fail to follow the license conditions. If this happens, you no longer have a license to use the material. If you have lost your rights under a CC license and are not entitled to automatic reinstatement, you may regain your rights under the license if the licensor expressly grants you permission.

You cannot simply re-download the material to get a new license. Note that you may still be liable for damages for copyright infringement for the period where you were not in compliance with the license.

The Creative Commons licenses have three layers , as does the CC0 public domain dedication : the human-readable deed, the lawyer-readable legal code, and the machine-readable metadata.

The Public Domain Mark is not legally operative, and so has only two layers: the human-readable mark and machine-readable metadata. When material is licensed using any of the CC licenses or tools, it is highly recommended that a CC button , text, or other marker somehow accompany it. There are many possible modes for marking. For our licenses, people generally use the CC license chooser to generate HTML code that can be pasted into the webpage where the licensed material is published.

CC0 and the Public Domain Mark have a separate chooser. Many platforms and web services such as Flickr and Drupal support CC licensing directly, allowing you to select an appropriate license. The service then properly marks the work for you. CC has published some best practices for marking your CC-licensed material, and recommends:.

See the marking page for more details. Before Creative Commons developed this vocabulary, it was difficult for a machine to ascertain whether an object was marked with a CC license. The image caption provides full attribution in the Chicago referencing style as used by the History of Art Department: see Referencing Styles - a Practical Guide and also identifies the rights-holder and licensing terms used at source:.

Getty Images : Embed our images. Getty provides a tool which enables you to embed rather than copy their images, free of charge, for use in material "relating to events that are newsworthy or of public interest".

The Terms of Use warn that "availability may change without notice", and Getty reserves the right to place advertisements or monetise your material, as well as collecting data about its use. Be aware that Getty actively pursue unlicensed copying of their images and will invoice the website owner. Wikimedia Commons brings together a very comprehensive list of answers to the question " Do copyright laws allow the upload of pictures of? The UK's Intellectual Property Office has published a Copyright Notice , pdf for a general audience, providing advice about reproducing digital images and photographs , and protecting your own images.

UK-based art dealer Follio. Note the differences between US and UK law which are outlined in the guide. Search these Guides Search.