Be picture perfect! Roughly 25% of television commercials have celebrity endorsements in them. Thousands of people buy products every year just because celebrities are in commercials advertising them.
This may tempt you to use celebrity stock photos on your blog. But don’t grab the first photos you see. You need to think about a few things so you avoid legal problems.
How can you use celebrity stock photos without needing to pay someone? When can you never use photos? What are image licenses, and how do they affect your stock photography?
Answer these questions and you can make the most out of stock photos today. Here is your quick guide.
See if You Qualify Under Fair Dealing
Fair dealing is an exception to UK copyright law. It lets you use stock photos and other copyrighted materials without permission from the copyright owners. Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, there are three instances when fair dealing applies.
If you use a photograph to research or study a subject for a non-commercial purpose, you do not need to pay or contact the copyright holder. If you are writing a blog post about Audrey Hepburn’s public image, you can use photographs and analyze how they affect how people see her.
You can also print a photo to critique or review it. The review can highlight the photograph’s features, analyze the photographer’s previous works, and describe your feelings about them. Your review can be positive or negative.
You can use stock images for the purpose of parody or pastiche. If you want to make fun of a politician, you can take a stock photo of them and edit it to make them seem absurd.
It may not be clear if your use is fair dealing or not. Think about whether your use of the work could impact the commercial market for the original work. If it can reduce the copyright owner’s ability to make money, it may not be fair dealing.
You should also think about whether it is necessary to use the work. For a research document or review, it is often necessary to print the photo so your reader knows what you are talking about. But it may not be necessary if you are talking about the subject in passing.
See if Your Celebrity Stock Photos Are in the Public Domain
The public domain is another way you can use stock imagery without worrying about copyright infringement. When a photo enters the public domain, it no longer has copyright protection. You can use it however you want, including for commercial purposes.
Photos enter the public domain 70 years after the photographer dies. However, photographs taken on or after 1 June 1957 have copyright protection if they were unpublished on 1 August 1989. Even if the artist is no longer alive, you have to wait 70 years after they die.
This means that most photos of modern-day celebrities are not in the public domain. If a celebrity is still alive, you should assume that a photo of them has copyright protection, and you should avoid using the image unless you buy a license to use it.
Understand the Right of Publicity
The right of publicity protects against the misappropriation of a celebrity’s name, image, and likeness. The United Kingdom does not have a formal right of publicity. However, celebrities have sued companies for using their image or voice without their permission and have won defamation cases.
A celebrity can sue you if you use an image of them to suggest that they have endorsed your product or company. They can also sue you if you reproduce unedited images of them for commercial purposes. Even if the photo is in the public domain, you can still get sued.
Some celebrities have registered their names or likenesses as trademarks. You can get sued for violating a trademark, even if you are using the photograph in a way that the photo has not been used previously. Never use a photograph of someone with a track record of suing people or who has trademark protection.
Check Your License
Some image licenses let you use images for commercial purposes while others do not. Think about how you will use the photo before you buy the photo. Read the terms and conditions attached with buying the photo and be willing to cooperate with all of them.
Royalty-free licenses let you use photos without having to pay money to copyright owners. You can use the photo for commercial purposes, though you may not be able to use it in your logo. You also cannot use the people in the image to imply they are endorsing your product.
A Rights Managed license lets you use an image once. But you can use the image however you want, as long as you tell the stock photography website how you will use the photo.
You can also use Creative Commons licenses. Each one is different, so look at your options and decide which one is best for you. Even if you can use an image for commercial purposes, you may need to attribute it to the photographer.
Find the Right Celebrity Stock Photos
Celebrity stock photos are more than meets the eye. You can use a photo without needing to pay someone if you’re commenting on it in an academic article, reviewing it, or satirizing it.
Public domain photos are free to use as well. However, celebrities can trademark their images, making photos of them hard to use. The easiest way to use stock photos for commercial purposes is to find ones with licenses that allow for those purposes.
Despite these limitations, you can use thousands of photos for your blog. TopFotos offers premium celebrity stock photos. Browse our collections today.