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by Terretta 5218 days ago
"This may make sense for images which are to be used in a commercial context, but for personal use like how I wanted to use the images, it's way too expensive and much too much friction."

That's why Flickr lets you search for Creative Commons images, for which the photographer gives you that personal use permission in advance.
2 comments
chives 5218 days ago
Never mind various sites which also offer public domain images as well. Then there is the 3rd choice of actually talking to the photographer. I have used original songs produced from a musician (with his written consent) and photos produced by a photographer (again with written consent) on websites I have made. Then again one is a good friend and the other is the future wife of another good friend of mine.
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js2 5218 days ago
There are shades of a grey between commercial use and free use which are unaddressed.
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Terretta 5218 days ago
You think so? I license photos through Creative Commons, and differently depending on the shades of personal to commercial I consider inherent in the potential market for a photo.

I find it covers all the shades of commerciality I've considered. Meanwhile, for a purely commercial photographer, the getty images option is there, and those won't come up in the Creative Commons search unless licensed appropriately.

The CC search tool on Flickr is a fantastic tool for finding photos of the exact "shade" of use you're looking for.

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js2 5216 days ago
CC photos are all free for non-commercial use, correct? What if you'd like to be compensated, but not at rates that justify the overhead of Getty Images? Many of the images I found were not CC licensed, nor did they have a Getty Images option. Those are the images I'm referring to.

e.g., go search Flickr for "drawdy falls". No results in Getty, no results in the Commons, but a handful of images from photographers that are retaining full copyright, but have't posted contact info. Maybe they don't want compensation and just failed to select CC when they posted. Who knows. Regardless, many of the images I found were in this middle ground. I'm not trying to sound entitled here, just pointing out that there's lots of images that sadly cannot be used.

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