Okay, I was just wondering what the risks are of using pirated stock photos. How do stock photo sellers track their images, once a photo is sold is it not completely up to the buyer to decide what they do with it? Just figured I'd ask before I shell out a bunch of money for some pixels.
There most certainly are rules. Check with the agency that you are buying the image from - they usually have the rules described in great detail somewhere on their site. Also, while it is not possible to track the use of every image that's sold, you can get in trouble for using the image in a way that violates the agreement (IF they find it). The penalties for doing this usually involve a rude letter from the agencies lawyer, plus $$ fines depending on the situation. Of course, someone actually has to find the image in question. Royalty-free image agreements are usually pretty flexible, and allow for a wide variety of uses - but just make sure you understand what you can and can't do with it before you buy.
Don't risk using pirated stock photos, if one person finds out, you're in trouble. I was going through the terms of a lot of stock sites yesterday and you're not even allowed to use them for things like templates for resale/distribution which I didn't know.. it makes me wonder where other sites that do use images in templates they sell get their images.
We run a stock agency in New Zealand, and have pinged a few people in excess of $1000 for each breach of copyright. It is not that hard to tracka and find purchased images.
Stock photos can be found pretty cheap , and some of the sites have free ones available. Don't risk it. Try fotolia.com
Watermarking pictures has got more advanced recently to the point where the human eye doesn't even know if an image is watermarked. You'll likely get in big sh*t fast if you try to copy Corbis or Getty images. There's tons of extremely cheap stock photo places like Istockphoto and Dreamstime that make it cheap to find alright quality images. If you're into professional grade websites there is no other choice...have to pay small fees for images
Well, if you sell an image to someone, And you get paid, Doesn't that mean they can do what ever they want with it, Even put it up for download somewhere, Or a place someone can leach it, The idea of an image is that people see it, So selling images isn't that good, Unless it is specified with their name, Or something customzied for their website/organization, Just my thoughts on it. Probly wrong :$
Nope , when you purchase it there are terms you agree to when you buy the image. You know the ones most folks don't read ;} Most for example prohibit you from buying an image then creating a Front Page template , or whatever and reselling it.
Yeah I noticed that when I was looking for images to use in templates. Any idea where other sites that sell templates get their images or do they just buy expensive extended licenses?
I am planning on doing this but my site is not ready yet, I will let you know when it is ready, or let me know what you are looking for I may have some you can use.-ter
You get them from a guy like me who will shoot them, then sell them for unlimited use. PM me if you need some, and we can work something out.
bigstockphoto allows template use with their basic license. I'm sure the other micro-stocks sites do too, but bigstock is the only one I am sure about right off the top of my head.
I definitely would not run the risk of getting caught, it really is not worth it as the penalties can be quite high. As far as I know, it is fairly easy for them to track down people who pirate them as well. There are some pretty cheap stock photo sites as well out there, for like $60 a month, you can find places that will let you download an unlimited amount, and use for however long you want afterwards. However, since when buying stock photos you usually only want a couple, that feature can seem redundant. However, it is always good to have a nice selection on your hard drive for use on other websites, or for other clients, etc.
uh no! That would be like buying a one PC license for Windows and installing it on 27 different machines! you buy the image and pay $ according to your intended use.
A few large companies use PicScout (www.picscout.com) software for tracking their images used without permission.