We provide services in the online space and publish various articles and videos on our blog, where we explain the use of some of our services. To enhance these articles and videos, we include photos of famous actors and singers or other images and charts. All these images and charts have already been published on the internet, and we always cite the source. Is this sufficient? And if we use images and charts to promote our services, do we need a commercial license from the author, or is an editorial license sufficient?
First, you ask whether it is permissible to use photos of famous people downloaded from the internet with a source link for promoting your services.
Citing the source may not be sufficient. Providing a source link does not address the protection of personal data and personality rights of the famous person and may not address the copyright of the photographer.
A person’s photo is considered personal data if it is possible, directly or indirectly, to identify a specific person. Since these are photos of celebrities, their identification is possible. Therefore, you are using the personal data of these celebrities and should have their consent. The fact that the photos have already been published does not mean the celebrities consented to their publication. If the photo was published without the celebrity’s consent and you republish it, you are violating their rights.
Furthermore, the celebrity might have consented to the publication of their photo but only on a specific website and may not have consented to further dissemination. If you use the photo of a celebrity for commercial purposes without their consent, you are violating their right to personal data protection and personality rights, as they did not consent to the publication on your site and for promoting your services.
Additionally, by publishing their photo on your site, you may also violate the copyright of the photographer. The author might have agreed to the publication of the photo on one site but not to its free distribution for other purposes.
Therefore, it is always advisable to check whether the photo of the celebrity was published with their consent, the extent of that consent, and whether the photographer agreed to the free dissemination of the photo.
The best way to ensure compliance is to use image providers (e.g., photo banks), which usually have the necessary permissions. And since the photo of the person is to be used for promoting your services, i.e., for commercial purposes, it is advisable to verify the extent of permissions for use in the respective photo bank for each photo.
When using any work (a photo is also a work), it is always necessary to credit the author or their pseudonym unless it is an anonymous work. Just because you find a photo on the internet without the author’s name or pseudonym does not mean it is anonymous. It could be that someone published the photo without crediting the author, thus potentially violating their rights. If you distribute the photo further without the author attribution, you could also violate their rights. Therefore, always ensure to investigate the authorship, and if you cannot find the author’s name, at least cite the business name or name of the entity that introduced the work to the public and the source where you found the photo.
You also asked whether citing the source (linking to the author) is sufficient for using images and charts downloaded from the internet, or if the author’s consent (license) is required.
The use of images and charts downloaded from the internet follows similar rules as using photos. It is necessary to publish them with the author’s name or pseudonym. Alternatively, the name of the person under whose name, business name, or title the images and charts are presented to the public, as well as the name of the work and source, should be cited. If the images and graphs have already been published, they can be republished under the Slovak Copyright Act as citations, for purposes such as review, critique, highlighting differing opinions, or for demonstrating something. Citations can be used for commercial purposes but only within a reasonable extent.
It is not true that once photos or images are published on the internet, they can be used freely for any purpose. This is confirmed by the well-known decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (Land Nordrhein-Westfalen vs. Dirk Renckhoff). According to this decision, placing a photo on a new website without the author’s consent constitutes a public transmission and infringes copyright, even if the photo was originally published on another site with the author’s consent. According to this decision, there is a difference between simply placing a photo on another website and making it accessible through a hyperlink, which does not infringe copyright. This means that if you do not have the author’s consent to publish the photo (which also applies to a person’s portrait), it is always safer not to publish the photo directly on your site but only provide a hyperlink to it. However, using a hyperlink does not fulfil the purpose of using the photo to enhance the text.
Regarding commercial or editorial licenses, they specify the extent of the use of the photo or image. A commercial license allows the use of a photo or image in advertising, marketing, and promotional materials in various forms, aimed at generating profit, such as selling a product or service. An editorial license allows the use of content only in the context of informing the public, such as in newspaper articles, magazines, books, and other media. An editorial license does not cover commercial use and usually includes restrictions on content modifications. Therefore, if you have a commercial license for a particular image or photo, you can use it to promote your services. But if you only have an editorial license, then you should use the image or photo primarily to inform the public or interpret certain facts or events to the public, not for commercial purposes.
In summary, it is always safer to use photos, images, and charts obtained from photo banks and to verify whether they authorize use for commercial purposes.
