Legality of using product images in local magazine

[jorgeousjulian]

I've created a club at my high school that produces fashion magazines and fashion shows.

I wanted my Beauty Director to do product recommendations, so can anybody tell me if it is illegal to use product images in a magazine to recommend products?

If so, how do I go about acquiring the right to do so?

(Notes: Our magazine is small (about 24 pages) and we simply print 100 copies and publicize our digital edition. We do not sale the magazines, only advertising space to pay for printing costs.)

 

[BetteT]

Excellent question ... this is a very, very important lesson for anyone who is involved in fashion or publishing.

Technically, no images may be used that you don't take yourself. You must purchase or negotiate for "usage rights" from the copyright owner ... who is usually either the photographer or the company or magazine who hire the photographer to take the images. Most magazine photos of products are not actuall taken by the magazine ... they come directly from the manufacturer ... and is usually free to the magazine since they are providing free publicity for the company.


So ... you should go directly to the publicist or publicity office of the manufacturer and ask. They might allow it since it's for a school club ... or they might not. I cannot guess what they might allow.

Other thought .... if you use them without permission .... technically they could sue you, your club, your school, your club advisor or all of the above. But they probably wouldn't .... you are too small to spend the money on. If they did find out, they most likely would just insist that you remove them and not do it again. And .... most likely they would never know, anyway .... unless one of their execs happened to be a parent.

So ... if you can't get permission and you don't want to risk using them anyway here's another thought: If you have a photography club at school ... why don't you use them to take photos for you and, of course, give you written permission to use them in your magazine? Of course, you'd have to find a way to get the product for the shoot. Perhaps buy then return it? Keep your receipts ......

 

[blackpeony]

What if the images were credited back to the magazine it was cut out from?

Would that work?

 

[BetteT]

Nope ... it makes no difference. Crediting them does not exempt anyone from paying royalties to the copyright holder and/or getting permission to use the images. But sometimes the magazine would give permission to use photos that they had copyrights on, on the condition that you credit them. You have to ask.

However, if an image belonged to the product manufacturer and not the magazine (which is very common), the magazine does not have the legal rights to give you permission, anyway and they would not be interested in credit for a photo they did not own. You would have to go to the product manufacturer and ask for pictures. They might do that because it's publicity for them.

 

[blackpeony]

Thanks Bette, that's really helpful

 

[tracypink]

Securing Images for my Magazin

I am launching an "eZine" and want to know how I can get images? Is there a charge to use images? Where can I get more formation? Thanks.

 

[BetteT]

To be legal, you must get any images you will use from the "copyright owner" and obtain their permission. Most likely you will have to pay for them, although sometimes someone might let you use them for free. You should get that in writing to protect yourself later, to prove you had permission.

The copyright owner is, initially, the photographer. But sometimes the photographer sells the pictures and the copyrights to someone else. It's how some photographers make a living, like paparazzi and stock photographers. And then you must get permission and/or buy them from the new copyright holder.


The best place to buy pictures if you don't know a bunch of photographers, is through one of many "stock photography" places. These companies buy picutures from photographers so that they can resell the rights to other people for use where ever they want.



There are two types of "rights" to use the photos thay you may buy.

The first is just "usage rights", in other words, you pay for the right to use them but the stock company may sell usage rights to hundreds of different people.

The second is "exlusive rights" and this means you own the picuture now and it can not be used by anyone else. Buying the exclusive right is extremely expensive compared to just buying the usage rights.

Then you need to know what "royalty free" images means. It does not mean the photo is free to use ... you still have to buy the rights to use it, but if it's "royalty free" you won't have to pay each and every time you use that image. You may use it as many times as you want in different places, like on your e-zine, your blog and on your facebook, etc. I beleive that most stock companies deal with royalty free images and that is what you want, I would assume.

Here is more information about stock photography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_photography



Here are a few of the biggest stock photography companies and image rights can be purchased on line:

Getty: http://www.gettyimages.com

Corbis: www.corbisimages.com

Associated Press (for celeb and news images http://www.ap.org/pages/product/photoservices.html


Here's one where they offer free images ... but I"m sure that they have some way of getting you to pay for images, eventually:

Shutterstock www.shutterstock.com

There are hundreds of others which you can find by Goggling "stock images" and you'll need to do some research to find out which ones has a lot of the kinds of images you will want to use in your e-zine.



Lastly, you can always hire a photographer and buy the rights to the images that he shoots for you ... that's what the big magazines do.

 

[kimberwyn]

^There's also sxc.hu that has free images as long as you credit the photographer.

For our magazine we just contact the PR agencies and online stores and got images in exchange for credits. We also have a photograoher who will shoot samples in exchange for credits. I learned all this in the "start your own magazine thread" here lol.