About Stock Images and Important Information. Please Read First

^{Lea esta información en español.}

The purpose of the Stock Images community is to bring the option for using stock images into the Hive community, where we can easily reward and support the creators of these images. We have lots of talented photographers and artists here and it's so much easier to tag them as the source and put them as a beneficiary of the post we use their image in, if we want to thank them for their work, than linking to outside sources.

The Stock Images community and the tag #hivestockimages are places where you can put a post with images you are happy to have other Hivers use. It's a meeting place between image creator and the author wishing to use their images.

We ask that if you see an image you want to use in the community or with the #hivestockimages tag you acknowledge the creator as the source of the image and consider giving them a part beneficiary of the post you use it in. The images should only be used on Hive unless there is express permission from the creator that they can be used elsewhere.

With the ethos of Hive being decentralised, I want as few rules in place as possible, so for the most part you should consider it a market place where your wares can be offered. They are no recommendations on quality or definition of your images, your reputation is your own to create, but it makes sense that you shouldn't plagiarise, that will ruin your reputation and get you blacklisted. It could also affect anyone who uses those images in good faith, so we will mute confirmed plagiarists.

In addition to the following, please take the time to read this explanation on why we feel we must adhere to legal restrictions outside of Hive.

There are, however, legal issues outside of Hive regarding photography that potentially affects both photographers and those using the photographs. While you are allowed to photograph people in public places and use those photos personally or none commercially, it starts to become a grey area if they are used for any commercial or trade purposes. This is likely to include blogging, because money can be made. So if there are any photos with recognisable people, a model release is recommend or full permission of the model in the photo to allow its use by others. It may be that it is friend or a family member, who give their permission, so in this case, it wouldn't need to be an official document, but just an acknowledgment that the model is not going to sue the photographer or any other publisher of the photo in the future. Some more information on the legalities and using model release forms can be found here.

My suggestion to photographers is that if you offer the use of photos with people in them, perhaps make it clear that permission has been obtained from them for use, whether it's people you know or you have a model release. If you're wanting to use a photo and it isn't clear whether permission has been obtained, perhaps check with the photographer or edit to make sure people aren't recognisable.

If a photograph contains pictures of recognisable brands and logos, then you could be in breach of copyright if it's used for commercial purposes and again blogging could come into this category, unless you're doing a review of it. While it seems unlikely that a company would want to sue you for displaying their brand (after all, it's free advertising), they might decide that you need to pay them a cut of your earnings for its display, so again, best if brands don't appear in photographs or they aren't recognisable if they do.

Some buildings and recognisable property (this could include things like art) also require a property release form. This article gives a fairly good idea of some of the times when you'd need one. The key seems to be whether it's recognisable and the sole focus of the image.

This is a rather useful article which gives the reader the ins and outs of what is or isn't legal as a photographer in the US. While it's specific to the US, most of the western world seems to follow the same rules.

In order to help people find images, posts will be added to indexes in different genres. There will be a main index pinned to the community page and sub indexes leading from it. These indexes are searchable if you use ‘control F' then type what you're looking for and they will be in alphabetical order.

For those submitting images for use we have a few recommendations which we hope will help them to be found and categorised.

• Make a clear title as to the type of pictures contained in the post and include "Hive Stock Images" as part of the title. For those searching, if they use this search term it should hopefully bring up these posts. Then they could add keywords for the type of image they're searching for.
• Use the tag #hivestockimages so we have another way to find you post for indexing and archiving.
• Compilation posts on a certain theme would be better than posting one picture at a time with that same theme.
• On the other hand, a post with multiple pictures containing mixed themes may not be very helpful for those looking for something specific.
• Add in your post what your requirements might be for people using you pictures. Do you want them to credit you or more specifically the post they sourced it from so others can find that or similar images? You can also state if you're willing to have authors contact you with special requests.
• Try to stick to quality rather than quantity. You will develop a reputation on the images you're submitting and if too many low quality images keep appearing then prospective clients may avoid looking through your work to find the gems. We reserve the right to not include low quality images in the index, particularly as availability of choice expands, however we will not mute or remove your posts, because others may still want to use them and that is their choice.

We have gained the support of the @ocd incubation program and will use that to support our creators posting in the community. As we add sub indexes we will use a photo from a creator as the thumbnail and award them a percentage beneficiary.

_{Many thanks to @lifeskills-tv for the image and adding the banner. Also thanks to @sitaru for the Hive bee image we use.}