Licenses on photo stocks: not prohibited not means allowed

In the comments on the blog article about the best free photo stocks you can find several questions regarding copyright for photos and images. An employee of one of the photo banks tried to answer them, but today I would like to publish a slightly more detailed article on this topic and at the same time consider the types of licenses in photo stocks. The material was prepared by Yulia Melnichenko.

License for images in photo stock
Not prohibited not mean allowed

You say the phrase sounds wrong? This is considered correct for the law: “not prohibited – it means allowed”. When it comes to copyright, then everything is not so simple. Let’s first consider the question of what copyright is in relation to photos and how it is regulated by law. Despite the fact that this article indicates the nuances of legislation in the Russian Federation, information on the types of photo stock licenses is relevant for all countries.

“Any photo taken by a professional or amateur shot with a high-tech camera or mobile phone’s eye is protected by copyright. Photography relates to works of art in the same way as painting, graphics, sculpture, drawing, caricature, comics, design sketch, layout, etc., and its author has all the property and non-property rights to this object only because he created it ”(Article 1265 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation)

And more useful information:

“The copyright to a work of science, literature and art arises due to the fact of its creation. For the emergence and exercise of copyright does not require registration of the work, any special design of the work or compliance with any formalities “(Article 9 of the RF Law” On Copyright and Related Rights “)

Thus, the author is not obliged to register his work anywhere, it is enough to confirm his authorship if necessary. Even if the author’s photo was made public by him or by a third party, the author does not lose rights to his image.

TYPES OF LICENSES IN UNFORTABLE IMAGES
What rights to images get users of paid sites discussed in sufficient detail. But there are free image databases. Can I use them and how? The easiest way is to find images released under the Creative Commons license. This type of license in photostocks allows authors to transfer their creation to public use. But there are some pitfalls here too, because there are several types of this license.

Types of licenses in the free stock photostocks
As an example, consider three popular European sites that provide content with raster and vector images: Flickr, Wikimedia and Pixabay.

Flickr and Wikimedia are millions of image repositories. This is not really literally photostocks, because any user can upload their images and they are not checked. Thus, to find a photo of the desired quality, you can spend a lot of time. But as an example for using the Creative Commons license, they are ideal because here, under each image, there is an indication of exactly how you can use it.

And the options are as follows:

All Rights Reserved – all copyright of the photo belongs to the author, and this image can be used only after confirmation of its consent.
Attribution (attribution) – you can use this image, as well as distribute and modify, subject to reference to the author or the source site.
Attribution No Derivatives (with attribution, without derivatives) – you have the same rights as in the previous case, but you can use only the original image, without modifications.
Non-Commercial (non-commercial use) – everything is clear from the name. You want to use for the design of your blog – please, but you can print on T-shirts for sale only with the permission of the author.
Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives – the conditions are the same as in the previous license, but without the right to modify images.
Public Domain Dedication (CC0) – image transfer to the public domain. You can change it, use it for commercial purposes, with no links to the author or the source site.
According to the latest license, the largest free German photo stock Pixabay works. All images on it are licensed under Creative Commons CC0. But this does not mean that you can do with them whatever you want. Even such a wide license has its limitations.

So, you CAN change the images, modify them, use when creating blogs, when designing websites, when printing calendars, business cards, postcards and for any other personal and commercial purposes.