Unsplash

Last updated

Unsplash
Unsplash wordmark logo.svg
Screenshot
Unsplash screenshot.png
Type of businessSubsidiary
Type of site
 Stock photography
Headquarters Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Owner Getty Images
Founder(s)
  • Mikael Cho
  • Luke Chesser
  • Stephanie Liverani
  • Angus Woodman
URL unsplash.com
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedMay 29, 2013;10 years ago (2013-05-29)
Content license
Free, with exceptions of selling without modification and compiling for a competing service

Unsplash is a website dedicated to proprietary stock photography. Since 2021, it has been owned by Getty Images. The website claims over 330,000 contributing photographers and generates more than 13 billion photo impressions per month on their growing library of over 5 million photos (as of April 2023). [1] [2] Unsplash has been cited as one of the world's leading photography websites by Forbes , Design Hub, CNET, Medium and The Next Web. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Contents

History

Initially a pioneer of the copyright-free photography model, [8] Unsplash was created in 2013 by Montreal-based entrepreneur Mikael Cho. While creating a new homepage for his company Crew, Cho was unable to find a suitable stock photo and hired a photographer instead. [9] Afterwards, Cho posted the outtakes from his company photoshoot on Tumblr, inviting people to use them as they saw fit. [10] Unsplash received more than 50,000 visits on its first day. [9] Cho supplied the first batch of photos to Unsplash, which then received contributions from amateur and professional photographers. Due to the volume of photo submissions, the site employed an editorial team and "curators" picked from the Unsplash community, including Guy Kawasaki, Nas, Khoi Vinh, Amanda Hesser and Om Malik. [11]

In March 2021, Unsplash was acquired by Getty Images for an undisclosed sum. Unsplash will continue to operate as a standalone brand and division of Getty Images with Cho in charge. [12]

Licensing

Unsplash license

Unsplash photos are covered by the Unsplash license. The Unsplash license prevents users from using photos from Unsplash in a similar or competing service. While it gives downloaders the right to "copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer or Unsplash", [13] the Unsplash terms of service prohibit selling unaltered copies, including selling the photos as prints or printed on physical goods. [14]

Content under the Unsplash license cannot be published under a Creative Commons license without additional permissions from the original authors. [15] Unsplash actively prevents authors from offering their content under Creative Commons licenses, for instance by deleting references to such licenses from comments.[ citation needed ]

In February 2018, Unsplash changed their license terms to restrict the sale of photos without first updating, modifying, or otherwise incorporating new creative elements into the photos, prohibiting selling unaltered copies, including selling the photos as prints or printed on physical goods. [16]

In December 2019, Unsplash for Brands was launched, where advertisers can share branded images on Unsplash. [17]

Public domain

An example of a CC0 image added before the license change. 200,000 other images can only be identified by hand. Davide-ragusa-gcDwzUGuUoI-unsplash.jpg
An example of a CC0 image added before the license change. 200,000 other images can only be identified by hand.

Before June 2017, photos uploaded to Unsplash were made available under the Creative Commons zero license, which is a public domain equivalent license and a waiver, which irrevocably allowed individuals to freely reuse, repurpose and remix photos for their own projects. Initially, the permissive copyright terms on its photos led to Unsplash becoming one of the largest photography suppliers on the internet, with its members' photos frequently appearing on articles.[ citation needed ]

In June 2017, Unsplash changed the license under which they made their content available to their own license, the Unsplash License, which imposes some additional restrictions. [18] Around 200,000 images were lost to the public domain. It is not possible to find which images had been available as CC0 prior to the license change. At the time of the license change, Creative Commons Director Ryan Merkley asked Unsplash to "either a) properly mark all the works shared using CC0 and/or b) make available a full archive of the CC0 works so they can be shared on a platform that supports open licensing". [15]

Other products

In addition to its website, Unsplash provides a public application programming interface (API) that answers more than 3.8 billion photo requests per month.[ citation needed ]

In 2016, while still a CC0 business, Unsplash released the Unsplash Book, the world's "first ever fully crowd-sourced" book. [19] The book's photos, essays, and funding were all contributed by Unsplash's community. [20] The book raised $106,000 on Kickstarter and included contributions from Harvard law professor and CC0 inventor Lawrence Lessig, and designer Tobias van Schneider. [21]

Beyond its website and API, Unsplash has hosted photo walks in cities around the world including Tokyo, Montreal, Toronto and Boston. [22] [23] The photo walks are hosted by guides from the Unsplash community who show participants the best places to take photos in their city, how to use their cameras, and how to compose better photos. [24]

In October 2022, Unsplash launched Unsplash+, a subscription for access to features, expanded legal protections, and access to content monetized by their authors. [25]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photographer</span> Person who makes photographs

A photographer is a person who makes photographs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Creative Commons license</span> Copyright license for free use of a work

A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that the author has created. CC provides an author flexibility and protects the people who use or redistribute an author's work from concerns of copyright infringement as long as they abide by the conditions that are specified in the license by which the author distributes the work.

Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is an American visual media company and supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video, and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets—creative professionals, the media, and corporate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BENlabs</span> American licensing company

BENlabs, formerly BEN Group Inc, is a Los Angeles–based product placement, influencer marketing and licensing company. The company offers AI-driven product placement, influencer marketing services, music partnerships, rights clearance, and personality rights management services for the entertainment industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stock photography</span> Photographs with a specific use

Stock photography is the supply of photographs that are often licensed for specific uses. The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s, has established models including traditional macrostock photography, midstock photography, and microstock photography. Conventional stock agencies charge from several hundred to several thousand US dollars per image, while microstock photography may sell for around US$0.25 cents. Professional stock photographers traditionally place their images with one or more stock agencies on a contractual basis, while stock agencies may accept the high-quality photos of amateur photographers through online submission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flickr</span> Image and video hosting website

Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a common way for amateur and professional photographers to host high-resolution photos. It has changed ownership several times and has been owned by SmugMug since April 20, 2018.

Mecklermedia was a U.S.-based corporation. The original WebMediaBrands was established in 1994, and headquartered in New York. Founded by Alan M. Meckler and Tristan Louis, the company provides business-to-business (B2B) services for creative, business and information technology professionals, including recruitment and event promotion.

Microstock photography, also known as micropayment photography, is a part of the stock photography industry. What defines a company as a microstock photography company is that they (1) source their images almost exclusively via the Internet, (2) do so from a wider range of photographers than the traditional stock agencies, and (3) sell their images at a very low rate for a royalty-free (RF) image.

iStock Microstock photography website

iStock is an online royalty free, international micro stock photography provider based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Shutterstock, Inc. is an American provider of stock photography, stock footage, stock music, and editing tools; it is headquartered in New York. Founded in 2003 by programmer and photographer Jon Oringer, Shutterstock maintains a library of around 200 million royalty-free stock photos, vector graphics, and illustrations, with around 10 million video clips and music tracks available for licensing. Originally a subscription site only, Shutterstock expanded beyond subscriptions into a la carte pricing in 2008. It has been publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyfraud</span> False copyright claims to public-domain content

A copyfraud is a false copyright claim by an individual or institution with respect to content that is in the public domain. Such claims are unlawful, at least under US and Australian copyright law, because material that is not copyrighted is free for all to use, modify and reproduce. Copyfraud also includes overreaching claims by publishers, museums and others, as where a legitimate copyright owner knowingly, or with constructive knowledge, claims rights beyond what the law allows.

500px is a global online photo-sharing platform that is a subsidiary of Visual China Group. It is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was co-founded by Oleg Gutsol and Evgeny Tchebotarev on October 31, 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EyeEm</span> German technology company

EyeEm, pronounced "I am", is a German technology company that provides services related to photography. It was co-founded by Florian Meissner, Ramzi Rizk, Gen Sadakane, and Lorenz Aschoff in Berlin in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pixabay</span> Free online media library

Pixabay.com is a free stock photography and royalty-free stock media website. It is used for sharing photos, illustrations, vector graphics, film footage, music and sound effects, exclusively under the custom Pixabay license, which generally allows the free use of the material with some restrictions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alamy</span> British stock photography agency

Alamy is a British privately owned stock photography agency launched in September 1999. Its headquarters are in Milton Park, near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. It has a development and operations centre at Technopark in Trivandrum, Kerala, India and a sales office in Brooklyn, New York, United States.

Pond5 is a New York–based online marketplace for royalty-free media. The company licenses stock footage, stock music, stock photography, sound effects, Adobe After Effects templates, and 3D models. Pond5 claims to have the world's largest collection of stock footage, and that they host more than 38 million clips as of September 2023.

Snapwire is a platform that allows users to take photos and videos in response to a request for brands, publishers, small businesses, and creatives who seek images that fulfill certain requirements. Buyers post a creative image brief and photographers respond by submitting their photos through the Snapwire website or mobile app. Winning photographers are awarded and paid. Aside from Requests, Snapwire regularly runs creative Challenges concerning popular image needs. Challenges are curated by Snapwire and are open to the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual China Group</span> Chinese photo and media agency

Visual China Group (VCG) is a Chinese photo and media agency. Established in 2000, it is a supplier of stock multimedia content to the commercial media industry. VCG is currently the largest stock image and media footage provider in China and third largest in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryan Merkley (businessman)</span>

Ryan Merkley was the Chief of Staff to the office of the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, and former CEO of the American non-profit organization Creative Commons. He is an advocate for open licenses, net neutrality and open data initiatives in the public sector. Merkley is the Chair of the Open Worm Foundation board of directors and was trustee at the Quetico Foundation. He writes and speaks on issues such as the sharing economy, academic publishing and legal infrastructure for sharing content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pexels</span> Free online media library

Pexels is a provider of stock photography and stock footage. It was founded in Germany in 2014 and maintains a library with over 3.2 million free stock photos and videos.

References

  1. ↑ Unsplash, "Stats", Unsplash, archived from the original on 22 April 2023, retrieved 22 April 2023
  2. ↑ "Celebrating 5 Million Images", Unsplash, 17 April 2023, retrieved 22 April 2023
  3. ↑ Laurinavicius, Tomas, "33 Epic Sites With Breathtaking Free Stock Photos", Forbes, archived from the original on 10 March 2016, retrieved 5 January 2017
  4. ↑ Ark, Casey, "14 Amazing Free Stock Photo Websites", Design Hub, retrieved 29 September 2022
  5. ↑ Martin, Taylor, "Use these 7 sites to keep your desktop wallpaper fresh", CNET, retrieved 4 November 2016
  6. ↑ Senos, Dustin, "Stock photos that don't suck", Medium, retrieved 10 December 2014
  7. ↑ Zee (14 August 2013), "Unsplash is a site full of images you can freely use for your next startup's splash page", The Next Web, retrieved 4 January 2017
  8. ↑ Webb, Scott, Free stock photography websites photographers must know ASAP , retrieved 19 December 2016
  9. 1 2 Cho, Mikael (16 October 2014), "How side projects saved our startup", Quartz, retrieved 6 January 2017
  10. ↑ Bourel, Fanny, "Mikael Cho : Une tenacité payante", Les Affaires, retrieved 30 October 2016
  11. ↑ Unsplash, "Unsplash Collections", Unsplash, retrieved 11 January 2017
  12. ↑ Simpson, Meagan (30 March 2021), "Unsplash to be acquired by Getty Images | BetaKit", BetaKit, retrieved 30 March 2021
  13. ↑ Unsplash, "Unsplash License", Unsplash, retrieved 11 January 2017
  14. ↑ Unsplash, "Terms & Conditions", Unsplash
  15. 1 2 Merkley, Ryan (22 June 2017), "Community update: Unsplash branded license and ToS changes", Creative Commons
  16. ↑ Unsplash (6 March 2018), "The Unsplash License", Unsplash Blog, retrieved 15 November 2018
  17. ↑ Ha, Anthony (10 December 2019), "Unsplash is building an ad business around branded stock photos", TechCrunch, retrieved 30 March 2021
  18. ↑ Messenger, Alexander N. (15 October 2017), "Unsplash no longer uses the CC0 license", 24zero, retrieved 31 December 2022
  19. ↑ Ifking, Emma, "The first fully crowd-sourced open book", IT Key Media, archived from the original on 13 January 2017, retrieved 8 September 2016
  20. ↑ Unsplash, "Unsplash Book", Unsplash, retrieved 20 June 2016
  21. ↑ MacKay, Jory, "Want to be a published author?", Crew Blog, retrieved 27 July 2016[ permanent dead link ]
  22. ↑ TimeOut Toronto, "Unsplash Toronto Photo Walk", TimeOut, retrieved 1 January 2017
  23. ↑ "History", Unsplash, retrieved 17 January 2018
  24. ↑ Unsplash, "Unsplash Local", Unsplash, retrieved 11 January 2017
  25. ↑ Growcoot, Matt (10 October 2022), "Unsplash Adds a Paid Tier, One Year After Getty Takeover", PetaPixel, retrieved 13 April 2023
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