Stock Photography - The Facts
It seems that you can't spend more than ten minutes on the web these days without running into one of them. You've seen them - models wearing suits and ties, carrying a briefcase in one hand and a cellular phone in the other; computer monitors with globes on them and the words WWW stamped across the screen - close-ups of bundles of ethernet cables, circuit boards, desert islands, planet Earth. They're stock photos, and they are everywhere.
Stock photography is nothing new. Magazine publishers have relied on stock photos for years - why go out and spend thousands of dollars to hire a photographer, a studio, and a professional model when you can probably get the exact photo you want from a stock house - and it comes as no surpise that stock photos are now showing up in electronic publications such as websites, presentations, and online brochures. But what is stock photography really, and how does one go about getting their hands on some?
A stock photograph is essentially a for-sale photograph which is intended for commercial use, usually in print format. For this reason, stock photographs need to be fairly generic in their content (typically you won't see a person drinking a can of Coke in a stock photo, though they may be enjoying a cola) and they need to be dynamic enough to evoke some sort of response (otherwise, no one will want to buy them). Stock photographs aren't artwork, they are a product which is bought and sold like a piece of software. Indeed, a photograph in electronic format is a piece of software, and like software, certain licensing restrictions apply.
Licensing
When you buy a stock photo (they can range in price from twenty dollars to a hundred or more) you aren't actually buying the photo; rather, you are buying the right to use it. In other words, you are purchasing a license. The same goes for software; I purchased Microsoft Word to write this article, but I don't own Microsoft Word, or else I would be able to sell it. If I make a copy of Word and try to sell it, I'll be hauled off to jail. This has some advantages though - if my Word CD is damaged, I can get it replaced, because I own a license to use Microsoft Word and just because I ruin the CD doesn't mean that I have lost my license, any more than wrecking a car means that you lose your license to drive. Remember, buying a stock photo only means that you have a license to use it - so don't try to sell it or even share it with someone else. If someone else uses the same photo in one of their publications, they'll need to purchase a license too.
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