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Hi all, If I use a website such as Blurb, or similar, to self-publish a book of photos which contain pictures of people and property, taken on public land, do I need to have 'permissions' for people/ property? I'm assuming that I do if I decide to sell the book. Is that correct? What if I were to sell the book and donate all profits to charity? Any ideas? Thanks 🙂

Hello, Maybe this has been asked before but I'm researching now for hours and can't find an answer, so hopefully someone can point me to a good article or describe it with some rules to follow. The basics are clear but I still struggle for some pictures where it is not "exactly" clear if a property or model release is needed to sell it for commercial (maybe also for editorial). Here a few examples: a) Picture of a street, no person is really dominant in the picture but it is possible to identify the person (let's say you see more then 50% of the face) b) same situation as a) in the backround there is a car which could be identified as an BMW, Mercedes, etc. would I need a property release (I understand that property can also be a logo, brand/trademark, etc) c) Picture of a building (temple, church, tower, castle,...) from the streedt can be always used for editorial and for commercial if it is not protected by some other rules, correct? d) If I leave the street and enter a ground which is still open to the public (say there is no gate no entry fee, etc) can I still sell for editorial and commercial? e) If I enter a location where there is a gate/entry fee (park, castle, ...) can I sell for editorial without a propery release? f) Reading Alamy resources I got the following impression: I can offer a picture as editorial & commercial and if I state that I do NOT have a model/property release the customer can decide if he takes the picture or not (since there are different rules in different countries), so decision and risk are at the customer side, is this true? I hope someone can give some guidance with a few simple rules to follow. Thx, Andreas.

Help! I have noticed that some images of books are selling as editorial only and others are okay for commercial use. Can someone explain why? I don't want to submit my images incorrectly.

Hi I’ve been wrestling with this editorial/commercial question for some time and wonder if anyone here can clarify. I’m aware this may show some fundamental mis-understandings of editorial/commercial licensing on my part – but I’ve asked around and done my googling, and still don’t feel I know the answer… Say, for example, a commercial company is producing a brochure that is being distributed for free / is for educational or public information purposes only. Could they use ‘editorial only’ images within that particular brochure, or – even though the brochure itself is not commercial (in fact is being produced at cost to the company), as the company is commercial by nature – would they still need a commercial license for images, and couldn’t use editorial licensing/ ‘editorial only’ images? Or is it that, even though the brochure is being distributed free, it could still be argued, is still in some ways promotion for a commercial company… so images shouldn’t be ‘editorial only’ and a commercial license would be needed? Or… (bear with me!) have I understood it completely wrong… and it’s nothing to do with whether the company using the image is itself a profit-making company, but is solely down to the particular context of how an image is being used? EG, an article within their brochure about ‘benches’ could feature an ‘editorial only’ generic picture of a random bench – but if the article was about a particular bench – and required a picture of that one particular, exact bench – then the image no longer becomes editorial, and a commercial license would have to be bought? Thanks in advance! And over to you…

Hey all, Out of curiosity, has anybody here come across situations when their model-released images were used in situations that may potentially cause the models potential embarrassment (in the best case scenario)? I've recently come across two of my pics which were licensed, not on here, which perhaps a model could take offence and wrote about it on my blog I realise that Alamy's clients are predominately editorial so would probably not apply, but for those that shoot commercial model-released, is it something that potentially worries you and do you notify the client that there's a small risk that the images may be used for "sensitive usage"? Is the small risk enough for some on here avoid commercial model-released altogether? I looked into Alamy's contributor contract and the wording is relatively wide: Unfortunately there's no such definition of what would be "defamatory" within the agreement. Best regards Alex