Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
It seemed inevitable after Getty images aquired the free image site Unsplash last year that they would eventually start a paid version. Well, it actually happened. Unsplash has announced a paid tier called Unsplash+ which will be a subscription-based format. But don’t worry, the free version will still be available.
Unsplash+ offers paying members access to “curated content” available for commercial licenses with extra legal protection and unlimited downloads.
It looks like the photography world is starting to get a little sick of AI-generated imagery. Or at least, much of it is sick of it being classed as “photography”. Last week, UK-based model and photographer website PurplePort AI-generated images on its website and now it seems that so have Getty Images/iStock and the “free” stock image website Unsplash.
Both platforms have made announcements in the past few hours stating in no uncertain terms that AI-generated images are banned from their platforms. Both companies also stress that this only applies to AI-generated images, and not human-created 3D render submissions or digital editing tools that are designed to enhance or manually create images from scratch (like Photoshop and Illustrator).
It seems like there isn’t a week that goes by that some photographer somewhere or other isn’t bitterly complaining about Unsplash, the stock image site that lets people use photographs for free. The arguments are always similar: Unsplash has ruined stock photography/photography in general, it’s impossible to sell images these days because of Unsplash, they have devalued photography…yada yada yada. Most recently an article by amateur photographer Marcus Platt caught my eye. Now this one was slightly different and had a very personal leaning to it.
Unsplash has announced that it’s becoming a part of Getty Images. Although the company is being acquired, it doesn’t mean that it will disappear. It continues to operate under its own name, and despite the controversy, the images on Unsplash will remain free.
Earlier this week, the UK Government came under fire over a “crass” campaign photo. It shows a young ballet dancer and a caption reading: “Fatima’s next job could be in cyber (she just doesn’t know it yet). Rethink. Reskill. Reboot.” Atlanta-based photographer Krys Alex shot the original image, and she spoke up about the incident. She says that she was “devastated” when she found out how her photo was used, and that she would have never allowed it.
Coronavirus has hit all of us, but artists and creators are among those who were hit really hard. UK Government decided to hit them even harder in a marketing campaign that completely devaluates their jobs. Not only does it mock artists, but it also uses free photos found on Unsplash, So, it’s no wonder that it faced a strong backlash and it was soon taken down.
The “free” image website Unsplash – a site that remains as controversial as it is popular – has released what it describes as “the most complete high-quality open image dataset ever”. The “dataset” in this instance is essentially the keywords and search metadata of a whole bunch of images that can be downloaded in one big lump.
There are two datasets available. The “Full” version contains information for over 2 million images from more than 200,000 photographers around the world and is available for non-commercial use only. It covers over 5 million keywords and 250 million+ searches. The “Lite” dataset is limited to 25,000 nature-themed images and keywords and 1 million searches.
Unsplash has in a short time become a major player in the photo-sharing industry. 174,000 photographers have uploaded images to the site. The platform this month boasts 5,000 views and 27 downloads per second. (PER SECOND!) People download images for blogs, classes, and other purposes, but also for commercial use. There is a big debate in the industry asking if Unsplash is good or bad, but it is not what I want to talk about today. Today I want to talk about the legal risks you face when you upload work to Unsplash. Not as the end-user, but as the photographer.
Photographers use Unsplash for exposure because of the enormous traffic the site generates. A company may hire a photographer for commercial assignments or simply want to license a high-resolution version of an image it found on Unsplash.
It is now exactly 2 years since I started uploading stock photos to Unsplash -the slightly controversial stock photo platform where everything is FREE for everyone.
And I thought this is a good occasion to review what I gained from my presence on Unsplash.
In this article I want to answer the question if giving away one’s photographs for free on Unsplash has benefits for photographers.
Of course, these are just my own experiences. Your mileage may vary…
Let me give you the short conclusion first. For me as a professional photographer publishing photos on Unsplash was (almost) completely useless and had no tangible benefits.
Yet I am not negative towards Unsplash and I am going to tell you why.
Many photographers argue that Unsplash is a disaster for the industry. But it seems that it can also be harmful to those who download and use photos from the website. Photographer, cameraman, and presenter Simon Palmer recently got into legal trouble after using a photo from Unsplash on his blog. Although the photo was from the “source of freely usable images,” Palmer got a copyright infringement notice from Copytrack requesting him to pay a license fee.
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