Image License & Usage Rights

The license travels with the image, not with the website you found it on. The same photo can be free on one site and $500 on another. This skill decides whether a specific use is permitted, what the license obligates you to do, and when you need a release. It is the gate before anything commercial ships.

First principle: verify on the source page, never from memory. Licenses change (Pixabay left CC0 in 2019; sites revise terms). Open the image's actual license/terms on the provider before you rely on anything below.

When to use a sibling instead

• "Where do I even find a photo of X?" -> stock-photo-finder.
• "Fetch and attribute images in code." -> stock-photo-api (it has the

per-API attribution and hotlinking rules).

Step 1: Classify YOUR use first

The same image can be fine or forbidden depending on use. Pin these down:

• Commercial or editorial? Commercial = promotes, advertises, or sells

something (ads, packaging, a product site, merch). Editorial = illustrates news, commentary, or education with no commercial pitch. Editorial-use-only images cannot be used commercially - this is the single most common violation.

• Internal or public? A deck shown in a meeting is lower-risk than a public

ad, but "internal" is not a blanket license.

• Scale - print run, impressions, or whether it goes on a product for resale

(mugs, t-shirts, templates, app UI sold to others). High scale and resale/merchandise usually require an extended/enhanced license.

Step 2: Read the license type

Common license families and what they actually allow:

• CC0 / Public Domain - do anything, no attribution, no permission. (e.g.

many museum/government archives.) Still check for identifiable people/property.

• Unsplash License - free for commercial and non-commercial use, no

permission needed; attribution appreciated, not required. You may not sell unaltered copies, and may not compile Unsplash photos to build a competing stock service.

• Pexels License - free, commercial and personal, no attribution required

(appreciated). You may modify. You may not sell unaltered copies, redistribute them on a similar/competing stock platform, or imply that identifiable people/brands endorse you.

• Pixabay Content License - free, no attribution required. **Not CC0 since

2019.** Cannot sell/distribute as-is on other stock sites; identifiable persons may not be used commercially in a way that is portrayed negatively or implies endorsement without a release.

• Adobe Stock - Standard vs Extended. Standard covers most web/print up to a

cap (commonly up to 500,000 impressions/copies) but not merchandise for resale or use in templates/products sold to others. Extended lifts the cap and allows merchandise/resale. Match the tier to Step 1's scale.

• Getty / iStock - Royalty-Free (RF) vs Rights-Managed (RM). RF: pay once,

reuse broadly within the license terms. RM: licensed for a specific use, duration, region, and exclusivity - going outside that scope is a breach. Plus the editorial-use-only flag (see Step 1).

• Shutterstock - Standard vs Enhanced. Same shape as Adobe: enhanced is

required for merchandise/resale and very high print runs.

If the license is not one of these, read it; do not analogize.

Step 3: Releases - people and property

A license to use the image is not consent from the people or property in it.

• Model release - needed to use an image with identifiable people for

commercial purposes. Without it, the image is editorial-only regardless of the stock license.

• Property release - needed for recognizable **private property, artworks,

trademarks/logos, or distinctive buildings** in commercial use.

• Paid sites (Adobe, Getty, Shutterstock) usually mark "model released" /

"property released" and hold the paperwork. Free libraries usually do not - treat free images of identifiable people as editorial-only unless proven otherwise.

• Editorial use generally does not need releases, but then you cannot use the

image commercially. You cannot have it both ways.

Step 4: Attribution & redistribution

• Attribution: follow the exact license. "Appreciated" != required, but if

required (some CC BY images, some boutique tiers), credit precisely as specified. For API usage, attribution rules are stricter - see stock-photo-api.

• Redistribution: nearly every license - even the "free, no attribution"

ones - forbids selling unaltered copies and re-uploading the images to a competing stock library. You licensed a use, not ownership.

AI-generated images

Stock sites now host AI-generated images and also offer AI generators. Rights are unsettled and vary by provider: some grant commercial use, some require disclosure, some exclude depictions of real people/brands. Copyright status of purely AI output is itself contested in several jurisdictions. Read that provider's AI terms specifically and prefer assets that come with an explicit commercial grant.

Quality bar - keep a license record

For every shipped image, record: source URL, license name, license/asset ID, date acquired, attribution text (if any), and release status. If you cannot produce that record for a commercial asset, do not ship it. When in doubt, default to the more restrictive reading or pick a clearly-licensed alternative via stock-photo-finder.