Good Morning all, I have a question for the theme designers: Where do you source your images? I am looking to list my first theme for sale, and I'm a little confused on the whole image rights thing. I have found quite a few images I would like to use from flickr. They are licensed under Creative Commons, for commercial use, with derivatives allowed. I have just assumed that many theme designers get their images much the same way. GPL, Creative Commons, Royalty free stock photo services, etc. However, nearly every single theme I see listed for sale states the theme comes with "full rights" to the theme and the images. I dont understand how you can really transfer "full rights" of an image in this scenario if you dont have the "full" rights of the image to start with. Additionally, I am also of the mindset that I am not selling the photo. I am selling the site. And the compensation for the site is a compensation for time and knowledge. Nevertheless, I wouldnt want to step on anyone's toes with regards to image rights. So, any thoughts on this? Is there a license that allows this? Is this how most of you theme designers are getting your photos? Should I look elsewhere for photos? If so, any suggestions? I'd really rather not spend greater than $30/month on stock photos, and I prefer free (of course).
just use yotophoto.com, the best source that I found. and you could just make a credits page with a small link in the footer, with the link to the flikr site, that should take care of the cc rights.
Wow! I've never seen that site before, it's going to be helpful. Thanks! to the original poster - yes, finding images for use in templates can be difficult. I actualy don't know any places where you can get good quality stock for any less than a couple hundred. Why don't you try snapping some photos yourself?
Thanks to both of you. I have been carrying my camera everywhere and slowly building up my collection of photos; however, it's really hard to beat flickr and other services for searchability. @sam: That is a good idea, but users are very hessitant to keep a designer's link in the footer for a theme they paid for...it comes very close to the whole "sponsored theme" debate that is currently raging. Anyone else faced with this issue?
One way to think of the problem is this: maybe it is better to pay money for pictures because you can deduct those money from the clients fee and more over, you will have no headaches about copyright: you bought it, you can use it as you wish.
Be carefuly with stock photographs.. even royalty-free ones because they make an exception in the rule about templates... you can use sxc.hu but it states that you have to contact the photographer before using them for free template designs, etc.
Thank you very much for the advice. I'll certainly make a note of that. One thing I have noticed is the for-pay stock photo services cost around $200/month . From what I can tell, it appears it would be cheaper to pay for a single pick on istockphoto.com than to pay for an "unlimited" download service...especially considering I will produce less than 20 themes in a month. And not all of those will use a photo. Anyone have experience with istockphoto? Are they a good source to use for templates, or is there some sort of gotcha in that scenario as well?