by Francis
(July 02, 2012)
Here is another micro task I outsourced to Fiverr end of last year. For another website of mine, I have used Creative Common pictures from Flickr which didn’t cost anything. I was looking for higher quality stock photos, only to see they are pretty expensive. Then I stumbled on this Fiverr task:
A guy called “100K” made this Gig:
I investigated. I wrote back and forth with him and then I just bought the Gig.
It goes pretty fast spending five dollars on Fiverr because you can literally buy a Gig with one click.
Anyways, after I explained to him what the pictures should be showing, I indeed got a very nice archived download with more than 80 high quality stock photos. They were not branded in any way, high quality and high resolution.
Then I got stuck: I did not know where the pictures came from and if would get into trouble using them.
I decided to ask the “100 K” guy if he knew about the copyright details to use the stock photos.
That’s where he was not much of a help. Here is what he said:
“Yes. You can use these pictures at anywhere you want without any license. As you know I provide pictures to my customers without any kinds of rights. It’s 100% legal.
As you have already heard downloading is not a crime if it’s used for people’s right. That’s what I do.”
What? Yes or No?!
This is gibberish!
And also it is nonsense.
I realized that I had bought material which I could not use legally.
Bottom line:
This Gig really sounded great. Like a great deal. People left awesome feedback for him and everything looked fine. Only that you couldn’t use the results without fear of someone filing a complaint against you.
Is there any method I can use these pictures anyways?
This is one the question I asked to my virtual assistant.
Here is what he thinks about it:
“I have noticed that many of the employers on oDesk posted jobs in which they demanded to research photos from different online resources including Flickr and Google search and sometimes they do not care about the license information. The only concern they have is that the picture should not have any text or watermark.
So if you asked me personally for using these photos I will definitely say “YES” but on the other hand I also know that you are always super cautious when using such content, therefore I would not suggest that you use these photos.
Also using these photos without its owner’s credentials would be immoral and unethical and in my opinion it is like you have stolen their work without their permission. So I would suggest you to use these photos only if you have their copyrights information.
I know some websites and tools which are great for reverse image search. For example “TinEye” and I am also using their application for Google chrome where you can just search the image by right clicking to that picture.
Although I will rate this tool as best among the other similar services, still results are not always great, especially when you search a complex picture having a lot of colors and variations.
Even if we find a picture’s copyright details by searching the reverse image search, you cannot credit those photos.
Why?
I did a lot of research on different stock photo websites and I know that there are more than 70% chances that a particular photo will also be available on other stock photo websites. Usually the owner/photographer of the photo sells his photo to all stock photo websites or most of the websites. So if we find the same image on 2-3 websites then how will we know that the photo we have bought belongs to which website?”
What is your opinion on this?
What will you do with 80 high resolution stock photos that you just bought for five dollars? Would you either discard the photos or ignore your investment of $5 or would you try to find a way to make a use of them.
I will love to hear your insights about it.
Comments for Fiverr Case Study: Buying Eighty and More Stock Photos for $5. Are They Really Royalty Free Images?
| Oct 28, 2012 | in search for photos At the moment I build several City-Handbooks for my side job. Thats why I’m looking for cheap (Stock)photos right now! Thanks for the advice to rather search for an alternative to Fiver. Will look into Flickr! =) |
| May 27, 2014 | Thanks! Thank you for the pointer to TinEye – it helped me determine that the person ‘selling’ me a graphic on Fiverr likely does not have the rights to the image he supplied me with (basically a composite of three images that TinEye was able to find for me). |
| May 29, 2014 | Happy to help 🙂 Thanks for letting me know this was helpful! In general, I would stay away from stock photo research gigs on Fiverr. At best, you receive some stock photos that are all over the net (since they are sold to many people via Fiverr). This makes your content look unoriginal, at best. At worst, you get in trouble with the legal departments of the stock photo banks. Not worth the trouble, I believe. There is good stuff to find on Fiverr. But there are some sections/gigs overrun with useless money-wasters. |
| Jun 11, 2014 | Royalty-free_not really There are lots of photo sites that have “royalty-free” ads, but in reality, you can’t use it without permission (copyright issue) if you want to use it for your site/article. In the other hand, you can, for personal use only like powerpoint. |
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