Understanding Stock Photo Licensing

Using professional stock photography is a quick and easy way to create professional and polished desktop publishing projects such as flyers, brochures, postcards and newsletters. The Internet has made millions of professional photos available to the public for very reasonable prices, and some are even free. But before you start downloading, there are a few things you need to understand about using stock images and photographs. This article will discuss general licensing information for stock photography.

Understanding Licensing
Almost all professional stock photos, free or paid have copyright protection or usage rules associated with them. A copyright protects the creator's "original works" such as books, art, photography, movies and software. The copyright protects the work from unauthorized copying, distribution and modifications for a specific amount of time.

Copyright Licenses for Images
There are four main types of copyright licenses associated with stock photos and images. These licenses control how the images can be used once images are obtained or purchased.

Rights Managed (RM)
Rights managed copyright licenses allow you to purchase a photo for one particular project. The terms of use are specified in the licensing agreement. RM licenses can be expensive, ranging from several hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on the image size and usage.

Royalty Free (RF)
Royalty free copyright licenses allow you to use a photo for multiple projects, for a one-time fee. Many RF photos are even available for free. With RF images, you usually have the right to use it as often as you want, for as long as you need. Be careful, though. Even though the photos have liberal usage, there are often some restrictions. Usage guidelines and restrictions vary depending on which website you obtain RF files. Make sure you check the terms of usage for each site where you purchase your photos. There are many websites that sell RF images, with prices ranging from less than 1 dollar up to several hundred dollars, depending on the size and resolution of the image.

Creative Commons
Creative Commons licenses are used by artists to share their work and to increase the amount of items available for free, public use. The Creative Commons license does not take away a person's copyright, so make sure you familiarize yourself with license rules before you use the image. The popular website Flickr has thousands of creative commons photos available.

Public Domain
Public domain images are images where the copyright has expired, or never had copyright protection. They can also be photos where the owner has released the work into the public domain. Many government websites have public domain licenses, just be sure to read the usage terms first.

Understanding copyright and licensing can be a little confusing at first, but once you do, you can feel confident using professional images in you printed and web materials.

Kimberly Gibson writes for DesktopPublishingBusiness.com. DesktopPublishingBusiness.com provides beginner desktop publishers and small business owners useful information, tips, tutorials, and videos on Desktop Publishing, including articles on Understanding Stock Photo Licensing and Stock Photo Websites.

Are Facebook Photos Public Property?

Facebook's terms of service expressly state that by uploading any kind of content, whether in the form of photos or material, you are automatically assigning copyright control to Facebook. All photos you upload to Facebook therefore become the property of Facebook. This means that Facebook can sell copies of photos posted by you without paying you any form of profit. Whenever you share photos with your Facebook friends you are giving up ownership of any intellectual property rights you may own in the photos you upload.

This applies whether or not you post the photos to a publicy accessible area of Facebook or not. By posting photos to any area of the Facebook site you are granting an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive global licence, including the right to sub-licence, use, copy, publicly perform, reformat, translate, distribute and the right to make derivative works of the photos to Facebook. When you decide to remove the content that licence may not necessarily terminate and Facebook have the right to retain archived copies of material posted.

This is the reason some subscribers choose to upload smaller photos to Facebook, namely to deter people re-using them, as smaller photos will be of lower quality and grainy in appearance. However you need to remember that whenever you upload a full-sized photo you are granting Facebook the right to save a copy of the photo on their servers, which they are then free to modify and adapt.

If you still choose to upload your photos to Facebook, ensure that the images you upload are resized low resolution photos which to reduce the prospect of them being re-printed or re-used in ads. If you upload the original size photos, Facebook have the right to use your photos for any commercial purposes without giving you any credit or compensating you.

The only foolproof solution for those who do not want to lose control over their photos is not to upload them in the first place. People often post their photos to their blogs or to a photo sharing website such as Flickr to retain ownership of their photos. However, in reality once photos are posted on the internet and available for viewing by anyone, they are in the public domain.

Anything posted on publicly accessible areas of the internet becomes a public record. Determining what areas of the internet are public and what areas are private isn't straightforward. Having control over the ownership of the property in your photos won't necessarily guarantee that your photos will remain private once posted on the internet.

Whilst you can set your privacy settings on Facebook so only your friends can see photos you upload, there are numerous ways people can circumvent these protections. There is no guarantee that you can ensure the privacy of your photos on Facebook via the use of privacy settings.

It is safer to assume that whenever you post photos anywhere on the web people can acquire and use them for purposes which you would not consent to and which could be embarrassing and illegal. Photos are often be stolen on the internet and used for the purposes of identity theft or pornography without the subject and/or owner ever being aware.

If you wish to share photos on the internet it is preferable to use a secure private network in which content is encrypted and served using peer to peer technology. Whenever data is stored on a central server it is susceptible to being hacked.

Often photos are uploaded onto Facebook without the person uploading them even having lawful ownership of the copyright in the photos. It is naive to think that Facebook or other social networking sites have the time to check the copyright status of every image that is posted on their site or is copied and pasted from their site to another site on the internet.
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Wherever photos you post on Facebook contain images of other persons, it is advisable to obtain a release from the subjects in the photographs. There are many situations where photos are posted on Facebook which are not the subject of copyright ownership by the person who posted them.

In order to have such photos removed a person must apply to Facebook or obtain a Court order. This may involve proving that the offending image infringes Facebook's terms of service or the common law.

For more information and resources on cyberlaw and ecommerce visit http://www.pacelegal.com.au/

Applying Printing-Press Rules To Digital Books

The New York Public Library has 87 branches, but recently some patrons have decided to forgo all of them, and visit the stacks in their living rooms instead.

As the popularity of e-books has increased, libraries across the country have installed virtual stacks. At the New York Public Library's website, patrons can check out audio books and e-books, temporarily downloading items directly to their computers or mobile devices, without ever stepping inside a physical library. "As our readership goes online, our materials dollars are going online," Christopher Platt, the director of collections and circulating operations for the New York Public Library told The New York Times.(1) The American Library Association estimates that two out of every three libraries now offer e-books.

But a recent decision by HarperCollins may slow the growth of libraries' digital collections. The publisher announced this month that it will set a lending limit for new e-books it sells to libraries. Under the new policy, after a HarperCollins e-book is checked out 26 times, it will self-destruct. The limit is intended to provide a digital equivalent of the ordinary wear and tear that, over time, causes paper books to expire.

The restriction raises interesting copyright issues. In the U.S., libraries are able to lend books as a result of what is known as the "right of first sale." This legal principle allows the purchaser of a particular iteration of a copyrighted work to resell or lend it without permission from the copyright holder, so long as no additional copies are made. Once I have bought a copy of a book, CD or DVD, it is mine to do with as I wish.

This principle, fairly straightforward when applied to physical objects, becomes more complex for "objects" such as MP3 files or e-books that exist only as bits of digital information. In response to file-sharing sites, which attempted to apply the doctrine of first sale to digital content, copyright holders began to assert that content transmitted digitally was licensed rather than sold. Since there was never any actual sale, they claimed, the right of first sale did not apply and they could, as a result, exercise greater control over how the content was used. End User License Agreements were created, requiring customers to agree that, though they seemed to be paying money to acquire a product, they were, in fact, not buying anything. By asserting a right to limit libraries' use of e-books, HarperCollins is essentially claiming that its e-books are, like software programs, licensed rather than sold.

The principle of "fair use" provides further information on how copyrighted works can be used. It is less directly applicable to library e-books, since it applies primarily to the replication of portions of copyrighted works rather than to the use of individual copies of whole works. But it offers some useful general guidelines for considering what constitutes copyright infringement. According to the laws on "fair use," individuals and courts examining whether a particular use is fair or not are instructed to consider "the effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work."

Publishers argue that unlimited library access to e-books would undercut their sales. If e-books are readily available to "check out" for free at any time, they worry, customers would have little reason to click "buy" rather than "borrow." HarperCollins said in a statement about its new policy, "We have serious concerns that our previous e-book policy, selling e-books to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine the emerging e-book ecosystem, hurt the growing e-book channel, place additional pressure on physical bookstores, and in the end lead to a decrease in book sales and royalties paid to authors."(2)

While the existing case law is murky, I am inclined to believe that, regardless of the possible consequences for publishers, the "right of first sale" applies.

But I doubt libraries will sue to win the point. While the "right of first sale" protects purchasers of copyrighted material, there is no "right to first sale." If selling e-books to libraries hurts their profits, publishers are free to simply refuse to do business with libraries. In fact, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan, two of the largest trade publishers in the U.S., currently do precisely that.

Just as libraries depend on publishers, publishers depend on libraries for a large portion of their sales. Sales to libraries can account for 7 to 9 percent of a publisher's overall revenue, two major publishers told The New York Times. Like it or not, publishers and libraries are locked in a relationship of mutual interdependence.

My guess is that publishers and libraries ultimately will find a solution that both can accept. Publishers might, for example, delay release of popular new e-books to libraries, forcing those who want to read the book right away to buy it. This is not much different from the way films are released first to theaters, then for pay-tv, and finally for sale and rental on digital media. Alternatively, or additionally, publishers might charge a per-checkout premium after a certain free lending limit, rather than requiring libraries to purchase new copies once theirs "expire." This would make it possible for libraries to keep books on their virtual shelves even when they are not sure if there will be enough future interest to justify buying a new copy.

The question of how to handle library e-books is just one of many that have resulted from the digitalization of literature. I have written previously about Macmillan's fight with Amazon last year over e-book prices, Google's usurpation of rights to out-of-print works and newspapers' fights to retain control of, and profit from, the content they produce. As we move into new legal territory, the specific provisions of existing copyright laws are increasingly proving inadequate to address new issues.

But the basic principles that govern our attitudes toward intellectual property are solid. Going forward, we should not alter our principles to fit changes in technology, but should instead develop innovative ways of using technology to honor our long-standing principles. Libraries and publishers should be able to find a new way to respect the old principle that expressions of ideas, once purchased, can be sold or lent for the benefit of everyone, even when those ideas are recorded in computer code rather than on paper.

Sources:

(1) The New York Times: Publisher Limits Shelf Life For Library E-Books

(2) HarperCollins: Open Letter To Librarians

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US Copyright Group Lawsuits - Understanding Rights and Defenses

If you're one of the thousands of people named as a defendant in a lawsuit handled by lawyers at United States Copyright Group (USCG) you may have questions about your legal options. This article provides answers to the most frequently asked questions about these copyright cases involving file sharing on peer-to-peer networks.

How do I know if I am a defendant in a United States Copyright Group lawsuit?

Notice of status in these cases comes in several forms. First, many people receive notice that they are defendants in a USCG case when they receive a letter from their Internet Service Provider (ISP). A letter from your ISP will often notify you that the ISP has been issued a subpoena from a court. The subpoena legally requires the ISP to disclose information about you to the requesting party, which is often U.S. Copyright Group. Your ISP usually sends you the letter as a courtesy before disclosing the requested information.

Second, you may have received a letter from USCG themselves. These letters often point defendants to a website where they are directed to make a direct payment to U.S. Copyright Group. Third, you may receive a summons from a court via certified mail or process server. Finally, you may receive a request for waiver of service via "standard" postal mail.

No matter how you learn about your status, you should contact an attorney as soon as possible to understand your legal rights in the litigation.

What options exist for defendants in these cases?

Luckily, there are often several legal options available to defendants in United States Copyright Group cases. First, you may have an opportunity to defend yourself in court. Depending on the facts of the matter, you may have defenses that are grounded in civil procedure. You may also have affirmative defenses in situations where you are using a shared Internet connection. Other defendants may have other legal defenses that are based on the unique facts of their particular situation. Depending on the facts of your matter, making attempts to settle the matter may also be worthwhile.

Most importantly, do not ignore any communications that you may receive regarding U.S. Copyright Group Cases. If you receive any of the letters described above, be sure to consult with a copyright attorney as soon as possible to understand and ensure your legal and financial rights.

Eric Menhart is an attorney with CyberLaw P.C., concentrating in Internet and intellectual property law. The firm recently launched a new website about the copyright issues in this article at USCopyrightGroupDefense.com.