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Photographic Copyright as Related to Stock Photos
Stock photos are pictures taken and made available for public or commercial usage via the Internet upon payment of a fee and agreement to the terms and conditions of usage. As such photographic copyrights exist on the stock photos.
The stock photos can be bought and used in a website, publication, graphic design or any form of publication. It should be noted that photographic copyrights exist on stock photos and you can thus not even copy and use the thumbnail image without purchasing the photo.
Various types of photographic copyrights exist for stock photos. It is imperative to understand the different usage rights. A royalty fee photo means that you can use the image as many times as you want for a specific fixed fee. You will thus be able to use the photo in a brochure of which for instance, 2000 or so are printed. You should however, note that you will not have exclusive rights to the image. You may for instance, not resell the image if not agreed upon with the owner and the photo can be bought by several persons who may use it in their websites and publications.
Another form of usage rights will be the rights managed type of licence where you pay for each type of usage of the photo and for the number of usages. This type of photo is more expensive than the royalty free one. It however, has the advantage that you will be the only one who uses it and as such it will not be published in various brochures, magazines or at numerous websites.
If you are a photographer and require assistance with terms and conditions wording for photographic copyrights or are a buyer of stock photos and want to make sure that you stay on the right side of the law, contact us at Smit & Van Wyk for legal advice today.
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