Question 1

Can I use stock photos in commercials or marketing collaterals and materials?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you may, as long as you have secured the license for the stock photo before using them. Stock photo licenses will allow you to use the stock photo for many usages. We have prepared a simple table to illustrate the various permitted usages for the content that you see on 123RF at our License Summary page. Did you know that Graphic Designs and Art Directors will often use stock photos and images to help them save time and effort by incorporating stock photos into their artwork and designs as they won't have to start everything from scratch?

Question 2

Are stock photos free? Can I use Stock Photos without payment?

Accepted Answer

A significant majority of stock photos are not free for commercial use. You are required to pay an affordable one-time licensing fee to use stock photos commercially. The license that you can secure from a stock content site like 123RF is called a “Royalty Free” license which means that you only have to pay once to get all the rights to use the photo. All future royalty payments are waived. Once you have secured the royalty free license to a stock photo, you may then use them in a commercial setting. Examples of commercial uses include using stock photos as part of a design in your product brochure, flyer, online, below the line, above the line materials and all forms of digital advertising and media, books, publications, product packaging, decals, products, templates and even digital wallpaper. While there is a fee that you'll have to pay to secure the license and rights to use a stock photo, the fee is very affordable. Did you know that you are able to license a stock photo for commercial use from $0.36 per content at 123RF?

Question 3

Are Stock Photos copyright free?

Accepted Answer

To begin answering this, let's try to understand what exactly is a copyright. A copyright is a set of exclusive rights that is automatically conferred to a person who creates a piece of work. Work here can include but is not restricted to art, a play, music, a sketch, a photograph, drawing, poems, and even a bunch of words strung together! Usually copyright holders would have the sole right to monetize from the creation of the work. This makes sense because the creator of the work should have the fundamental rights to benefit from the creation of the work - as such, royalties are traditionally paid to the creator every single time the work is used. Copyright protection would last for several years after this period of time, it goes into the public domain and anyone would be able to use it without worrying about whether the copyright holder's rights are being infringed. The copyright granted to the copyright holder, can also be assigned to another party. This means that the copyright holder can give certain allowances for another party (like you) to use whatever they have created (a photograph, for instance) to use the work and promote your brand, product or service. The terms and details of which are then, enshrined in the form of an End User License Agreement. Hence, every stock photo, vector illustration, footage, and audio file on 123RF definitely does have a copyright owner. All of our contributors who have uploaded their content on 123RF have chosen to monetize their work by putting it up for licensing on our platform. We have an end to end agreement with our contributors to offer you the ability to license the content pieces under a Royalty Free license. This simply means that as long as you have paid the initial licensing fee, you no longer have to pay royalties to the copyright owner for repeated use of the content in all manner of usage covered under 123RF’s Royalty Free End User License Agreement. In essence, the stock content that you see on 123RF is not copyright free, they’re Royalty Free

Question 4

What are stock photos?

Accepted Answer

Generally speaking, stock photos are photographs that have been pre-shot and cover certain themes, topics or genres for the purpose of being used commonly in advertising to deliver a certain concept or message, and are often used in the commercial promotion of a brand or its products or services. Certain ever-green subjects such as landscapes, nature, babies, animals and food are always popular when it comes to stock photos. Business, technology, healthcare and romance are hot topics for stock content. You’ll find our collection filled to the brim with content for seasonal trends and festivities like Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter, Halloween and summer will always find a place in our content library.

Question 5

What does Royalty Free mean?

Accepted Answer

The term “Royalty Free” refers to the licensing model where a one time payment is made and no future royalty payments will be incurred. Hence, the term royalty free. When it comes to stock photos, the party who wishes to obtain the license to use the stock photo will have to make a one time payment to obtain all the rights (as defined in the license) to the photo. Once any party has secured the royalty free license to a stock photo, they may use the content in a commercial setting. Examples of commercial uses include using stock photos as part of a design in your product brochure, flier, online, below the line, above the line and all forms of digital advertising and media, books, publications, product packaging, decals, products, templates and even digital wallpaper. Did you know that you are able to license a stock photo for commercial use from $0.36 per content at 123RF?

Question 6

Can I use a stock photo with a watermark commercially?

Accepted Answer

Strictly speaking, no one should not use a stock photo with a watermark in a commercial manner. Watermarks are there to protect the rights of the copyright owner. When you see a photo with watermarks still present, it usually means that the photo that is used has not been legally licensed. The person who uses such a photo can face litigation and have a civil lawsuit on their hands. At 123RF, we watermark our low resolution preview photos as a measure to protect the rights of our stock content artists. You may use these watermarked photos within your artwork as a mock and present them for approval with a client or just to see how it would look. However, once you or your client is happy with the results, please secure the appropriate End User License and you will receive the high resolution version of the stock photo. You should use the high resolution version of the photo without any watermark and you need not worry about legal issues as all the content that you see on 123RF has been put through a stringent review process to ensure that you can safely use any material in all your creative work and projects.

Question 7

What are the benefits of using stock photos?

Accepted Answer

The many benefits of using stock photos are: 1.    Using stock photos saves you time. Coordinating a photo shoot session and getting models, scouting for locations, preparing props and getting property releases executed is a lengthy and involved process. Stock photos have already been shot, the model and property releases have been checked and cleared for you to use them safely in your commercials and ad campaigns. This alone could take months from start to finish! 2.    It also saves you money. When you conduct a photo shoot, you’ll need to hire photographers, lighting and production assistants, models, buy props, clothing, and rent locations for your photo shoot. Post production also requires a graphic designer or image editing expert that’s familiar with editing software to touch up the photos that you’ve shot. Stock photos are an economical solution as everything has been pre-shot, so you don't incur any production costs. 3.   They're instantly available. This allows you or your team to see the end result, and incorporate it into the artwork immediately. You can even download lower resolution sample copies (called comps) with 123RF’s watermark to have it  mock up in your artwork. Once you or your customer approves of the mocked up version, you can then license the original full resolution photo without any watermarks, and use it for your designs and campaigns. 4.   They're safe to be used legally and commercially. Royalty free commercial stock photos containing models, and if shot in a restriction location, will require proper model and property releases respectively. We hire teams of image inspectors who will ensure that all images featuring models and locations have accompanying releases. Once you’ve licensed a stock photo from our collection, you are indemnified against any legal liability up to a maximum of USD25,000 in aggregate arising from the use of that stock photo as long as you have complied with the respective End User License Agreement, Extended License and Terms of Use of the site.

Question 8

Can I use this stock photo and put it on my product?

Accepted Answer

Yes, generally speaking you will be able to incorporate stock photos into your product. However, you will have to check a few items before we can give you the all clear! The first thing that you need to check is, whether the stock photo is marked as “Editorial Use Only”? “Editorial Use Only” marked photos can only be used in publications such as news articles, broadcasts, programs and blog pieces. These stock photos cannot be used for normal commercial means. The second thing you have to determine is, whether the product that you intend to incorporate the stock image onto contravenes our End User License Agreements. You MAY NOT use stock photos if your product or service is related to these industries or applications : tobacco, sex, illegal drugs and politics. Next, please check if the product that will bear the stock photo will be sold OR if your product is something that helps with the promotion of your brand or company, and not sold but given out as a promotional item? If the product is sold and by incorporating the stock photo increases the perceived value and price of the product, then you may use the stock photo as long as you have secured the upgraded Extended End User License Agreement. If the product is a promotional item, then a Standard End User License Agreement will be sufficient to cover the scope of intended usage. There you have it, now you can safely use stock photos in your products! If you’re running a business that helps customers to print items and might want to use our stock photos in your product offering without having to purchase Extended End User Licenses beforehand, do consider joining our API Value-Added Reseller program.

Question 9

What are the different types of licenses for stock photos?

Accepted Answer

The stock photo industry has historically seen 2 broad base license types. The first is called Rights-Managed where the party that wants to use the photo has to select specific usages, geographical regions, media and typically time frame to use the stock photo in, and pay the corresponding fee which often goes up incrementally with an expanded scope of use. The second is called Royalty Free; Under a Royalty Free license, the licensor will grant the interested party the rights to use the stock photo for most commercial and advertising usages in perpetuity for a one-time fee. At 123RF, you may license our content under a Royalty Free license, and we carry two flavors of the Royalty Free license to suit your usage. An affordable Standard End User License covers most standard usage of a stock content for commercial and advertising use. If you intend to use our stock content in a product that you intend to resell or monetize, you should secure the Extended Extended End User License which will expand the scope of use for products that will be resold as well. Please look at our license summary page to get an idea which license will suit you best.

Question 10

What is “Editorial Use Only” content?

Accepted Answer

When a photo is marked as “Editorial Use” this denotes that this content can only be used for publications, news articles and blog pieces. Why is this so? Editorial content usually contains subjects and themes that are deemed newsworthy (i,e, event, festival, convention, conference, concerts, award ceremonies) or depict someone famous like a celebrity. Photos that are marked as Editorial content are usually not model or property released. Street photography is an example of Editorial content, usually when a photographer takes a shot on the street, they do not approach people to ask for a signed model release, nor would they ask the owner of the property to execute a property release as well.

Question 11

Can I use “Editorial Use Only” content in my commercial or marketing collaterals?

Accepted Answer

When a photo is marked as “Editorial Use” this denotes that this content can only be used for publications, news articles and blog pieces. Why is this so? Editorial content usually contains subjects and themes that are deemed newsworthy (i.e. event, festival, convention, conference, concerts, award ceremonies) or depict someone famous like a celebrity. Photos that are marked as Editorial content are usually not model or property released. Red carpet photography is a great example to understand the reason behind why Editorial content cannot be used for commercial or marketing purposes. During such award events, a photographer takes a lot of shots of a posing celebrity or a group of celebrities, the photographers will not be able to approach the star to ask for a signed model release, nor would the star(s) knowingly sign a document that would permit any company to use their likeness in a stock photo to promote or endorse a brand, product or service. Therefore, in conclusion the answer to that question is, no, “Editorial Use Only” content should only be used for news sites, news related broadcasts, blogs or publications.

Question 12

Where can I use “Editorial Use Only” content?

Accepted Answer

Editorial content usually contains subjects and themes that are deemed newsworthy (i.e. event, festival, convention, conference, concerts, award ceremonies) or depict someone famous like a celebrity. Photos that are marked as Editorial content are not model or property released, as it is impossible to secure model releases for every recognizable person in the photo, especially with crowd shots at an event, red carpet or street photography. We hope that with the explanation above, it becomes clear why “ Editorial Use Only” content should only be used for news sites, news related broadcasts, blogs or publications as these materials are often deemed newsworthy, have some journalistic value or depict a historical subject.

Question 13

Where can I get stock photos from?

Accepted Answer

You are able to license stock photos from 123RF.com. When it comes to stock photography, vector illustrations, footage and audio files; 123RF has a collection of over 180 million content items for you to choose from. When you license a stock image or photo from us, you will receive a) the license to use the content in all commercial usages , social media channels or advertisements as well as; b) the high resolution version of the file without any watermarks. We've made it simple to search and locate the exact stock photo that will suit your requirements, all you have to do is just start searching, or start browsing from our stock photo categories. Your graphic designer will love the time and effort saved by using stock photos to create marketing campaigns and digital ads. Did you know that you are able to license a stock photo for commercial use from as low as $0.36 per content/ image?? at 123RF?

Question 14

Do I have to buy stock photos to use them?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in most cases you have to buy stock photos to use them legally. Stock photos are owned by photographers, agencies or companies, and you can secure the licenses for the personal and commercial use of the photos you see on 123RF.com. Using a stock photo without purchasing the appropriate license is a violation of copyright law and can result in legal consequences. To understand more about what you can do with stock photos once you've licensed them, please refer to 123RF.com's Standard End User License Agreement.

Question 15

What is the difference between Editorial use and Commercial use images?

Accepted Answer

When a photo is marked as “Editorial Use” it  denotes that this content can only be used for publications, news articles and blog pieces. Editorial Use content contrasts with “Commercial Use” content, where Commercial Use content is safe to be used on not only in publications but as well as advertising, displays, printed materials like flyers and brochures, commercials, products, social media posts, broadcasts and more. Why is this so? Editorial content usually contains subjects and themes that are deemed newsworthy (i.e. event, festival, convention, conference, concerts, award ceremonies) or depict someone famous like a celebrity. Photos that are marked as Editorial content are usually not model or property released. Street photography is an example of Editorial content - usually when a photographer takes a shot on the street, they do not approach people to ask for a signed model release, nor would they ask the owner of the property to execute a property release as well. Our team however, will ensure that all content marked as Commercial use stock photography will have accompanying signed and executed model and property releases. When a photo depicting someone or a location has the right releases, it means that this person or the owner of the property has legally waived all future rights and claims to their likeness or property to be used in a commercial manner, without any further monetary or other form of compensation.