Internet image banks: are all the same?

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Context

The image banks are considered a key element in setting up a website or giving content to our blogs. But we don’t always know where to look for free photos that meet our requirements. One of the most succinct options for those who handle with photo retouching programs is to make the photos for themselves, at your own best to then modify them and adapt them to the needs of the web or blog. Most users, however, lack the knowledge of photography or graphic design and end up coming to the photo banks on the network.

The image banks have had to take advantage of the current law on copyright and intellectual property, establishing legal bases that act in parallel with the existing legislation to make possible the copy, distribution and exploitation of photographic material on the network. But as not all cases are equal, limits have been imposed that categorize the various ways of sharing and exploiting a photograph of an image bank. The law on intellectual property refers to inventions, ideas, literary and artistic works, as well as names, images and symbols used in the trade. The law on intellectual property is divided into two:

• Industrial property: includes patents for inventions, brands, industrial designs and geographical indications.

• Copyright: includes literary works (novels, poems and plays), films, musical works and artistic works (drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures and architectural designs).

In the exploitation and dissemination of graphic content on the web (photographs, in this case) it must be noted that each image bank acts according to the services it provides to the user. Some image banks profit from the images they offer and charge for their use, exploitation and distribution. In some cases, the patent or license of the photo / set of photographs is sold directly.

As a web design company we do not recommend the storage and exploitation of images obtained in a search engine (such as Google) as a search engine does not filter licences and patents, and it is not known for certain whether the copyright and intellectual property law is being violated. To avoid these situations, the image banks have been created. Image banks are online photo stores that make available to the user an undetermined number of images for use. According to each image bank, they will be charged or free, they will have water marks or will be of size and quality. Before the same image categories, it has the same image, it is the same quality and the use of the image, it is the same image, the same as the image, the same image, the same as the image, the same image, the same as the image, the image, the same image, the same image and the same image categories that it offers.

In general terms, image banks could be grouped in free and not free, although there are exceptions in which both options are plausible.

These are those image banks that offer their photographs for free. Within this category, there are various image banks according to the conditions they impose when downloading, using or disseminating their photographs (water marks, reduced sizes, low quality). They can be classified according to the use to be given to the images:

• Personal use: images have no profit or commercial purpose. Images of personal blogs fall within this category.

• Commercial use: the photographs are used to sell or sponsor a product for profit.

Below we will appoint a number of free image banks, each with its own operating conditions:

FLICKR AND EL CREATIVE COMMONS

This professional image bank uses Creative Commons licenses that have four features that, combined with each other, give rise to six different types of licenses. The following are the following:

• Attribution: This license allows others to copy, distribute, show and reproduce the work with copyright only if the merit of the photographer who supports copyright is publicly and openly recognized.

• Non-commercial: you can copy, distribute, show and reproduce the work if the ultimate ends are non-commercial.

• Non-derivative works: copies of the work can be copied, distributed, displayed and reproduced, and derivative works based on the original are exempted.

• Share under the same license: works derived from a licence identical to the licence governing the original work can be distributed.

The six licences that can be formed with the combination of these four elements are the following:

• Licence Attribution

• License Attribution - Non-derivative works

• Licence Attribution - Non-commercial - Non-derivative works

• Attribution License - Non-commercial

• License Attribution - Non-commercial - Share

• License Attribution - Share

To download free images without disrespecting the licenses, just specify in the search “search only within content with Creative Commons licenses.” They give you the option to mark the search for photos for commercial use or to modify, adapt or use them as a basis.

SEARCH.CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG

This web portal that bases its licenses according to Creative Commons offers the user the possibility to search for free images on other websites. It is a web image tracker. It also raises the user’s possibility to add a type of Creative Commons license on his website.

PHOTL.COM

Another free and professional web-sized image bank for web development, web design and graphic design, among others.

SXC.HU AND SU IMAGEN LICENCES AGREEMENT

This image bank requires a prior registration on the web in order to download the photos. These, in turn, are governed by the image license agreement that they have imposed on their web for the regulation of their operation and distribution. The conditions of use are as follows:

• Digital formats for web pages, multimedia presentations, videos, films and mobile phones.

• Promotional materials printed, newspapers, magazines, books, brochures and CD and DVD covers.

• Visiting cards.

• Decoration for home, office or any public place.

• Pornography, immoral or non-ethical purposes, distribution of hatred or discrimination and defamation of persons, organizations or cultures.

• Representing products and services belonging to a person.

• To defamation SXC or the author of the photograph.

• Use it as part of a watermark, logo or service mark.

• Sell and redistribute the image, individually or in conjunction with other images.

UNSPLASH.COM, DIEZ IMAGENES GRATIS CADA DIEZ DAAS

This “tumblr” that makes the image bank functions free of charge offers ten new high quality images every ten days.

BIGSTOCKPHOTO.ES, PLANES AND PRICES

This photo file works through credit and package purchases. You can aim at the test version and get a free image for a month, but from that time, you have to pay for the image license.

GETTY IMAGES AND ITS LICENCES AGREEMENTS

This huge image bank has recently announced the opening of your entire photo file on condition that the copy, use, distribution or reproduction is made non-commercial purposes. Now you can share it on social networks and insert it into a web content through a code. On the other hand, the Getty Images licensing agreements are as follows:

• DG - Managed Rights: They have restrictions on size, placement, duration of use and geographical distribution. Depending on the use to which the image is intended, one or the other amount will be charged.

• RF - Duty-free: duty-free products can be used on countless occasions without paying an additional amount, but they suggest that an initial figure should be paid to access this operating service.

• DG - Editorial: the licence restricts the use, size, placement, duration of use and geographical distribution. This licence can be applied according to the Managed Rights or either through Expres.

• Use for sketches and previews: some electronic image bank files can be used for a limited time free of charge and only for personal, non-commercial and test or preview use.

• Music: restrictions on the use of the music license vary depending on the recipient, purpose, means or format.