Infozone

Welcome to the Visual Connections Infozone, your one-stop source of information on all aspects of licensing images for commercial use. We will update and extend the articles here in response to feedback via our blog, so if you have a question about anything you read, follow the link beside the article to the relevant blog article.

Topics covered

• Copyright: what it is and what it protects
• Fair use: when you may use an image without permission
• Licensing: what the different types of licenses mean
• Releases: model and property releases and when you need them
• Orphan works: using images with no contactable copyright owner

We will be adding more articles over the next few months, on subjects such as sourcing images, licensing footage, production services, and color calibration. If you have a suggestion for a subject you would like to see covered, please let us know.

Sponsors

The Infozone is kindly sponsored by PACA (Picture Archive Council of America), the trade organization in North America that represents the vital interests of stock archives of every size, from individual photographers to large corporations, who license images for commercial reproduction.