In 2007, a photo of a teenage girl went up on Flickr under a Creative Commons license. That license let anyone use the picture commercially, as long as they credited the photographer. So an Australian phone company put it in an advertising campaign.
Her family sued. The copyright permission was real, but nobody had asked the girl whether she wanted to be in an ad.
That gap explains commercial vs editorial use for images better than any definition. Commercial use means an image helps sell or promote something. Editorial use means it illustrates news or a subject of public interest. An image licensed for editorial use cannot appear in advertising, marketing or branded content.
In this article we will give you a one-question test and the reason behind it. Then we will sort the common uses, take a position on the grey areas, and show what to do when the photo you want is editorial.
Commercial vs editorial use for images
Commercial use is any use that sells, promotes or endorses a product, a service or an organization. Ads count, and so do websites, packaging, emails and branded social posts.
Editorial use is any use that informs. The image illustrates a news story, a commentary piece, a documentary or a textbook, and it promotes nothing. In a nutshell, editorial content covers events that are newsworthy or of general interest.
Both labels describe a use, so the same photograph can carry either license. A portrait of a chef could run in a magazine profile under an editorial license. With her signed consent, it could also run in a cookware ad under a commercial one.
So one check sorts almost every case. Ask whether the image is helping to sell, promote or endorse something.
If it is, then the use is commercial, and the format around it makes no difference. A well-reported article on a sneaker brand’s website still exists to sell sneakers. Because of that, who publishes a piece and why matters more than how it reads.
Why the line exists
A photograph of a person carries two separate permissions, and each comes from a different party.
The first is the license. It comes from whoever owns the copyright, usually the photographer, and it covers the picture itself.
The second is the release. A model release is a person’s written consent to appear in the image, and a property release does the same job for identifiable private property. So releases cover what sits inside the frame.
Editorial images have the first permission and lack the second. In other words, editorial images come without model or property releases. That is why a newspaper can run a photo of a crowd, a politician or a storefront. Reporting on the world does not require the world’s consent.
On the other hand, when your brand uses a face to sell something, you imply that the person agreed to help. Publicity laws draw the same line, although they vary by state. New York’s statute, for example, covers any use of a person’s picture “for advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade” without written consent.
What the Flickr case shows
Now go back to the girl in the phone ad. Her family’s lawsuit, Chang v. Virgin Mobile, claimed invasion of privacy alongside other counts. A federal court in Texas dismissed it in 2009 because it had no jurisdiction over the Australian company.
Even so, the campaign showed marketers how a valid license can still leave a person unasked.
“I’ll always stand behind empowering independent photographers,” says Kelsey Bryden, an art director and designer. Good licensing does that and one thing more. A license pays the person behind the camera, and a release respects the person in front of it.
What counts as images for commercial use
Commercial use covers more ground than paid media. It includes:
- Paid ads on social, display, print and out of home
- Homepages, landing pages and product pages
- Packaging and merchandise
- Email campaigns, brochures and sales decks
- Posts on a brand’s own social accounts
Images for commercial use need two things. The license has to name commercial use, and every recognizable person or private property in the frame needs a release.
Property works the same way as people. A private home, an artwork or a logo in the shot belongs to someone, so it can need its own clearance. Cropping the logo out fixes the layout, but the rest of the frame still needs checking.
Free does not mean cleared. A Creative Commons license or a free library’s terms answer the copyright question only. So the releases stay your problem, and some free libraries say they cannot verify every one.
Libraries built for brand work close that gap before you arrive. Stills, for example, issues rights-managed licenses that name commercial and advertising use. We compare the options in Where to License Authentic Commercial Photos.
A commercial license still has edges, because it sets how long, where and in which media an image can run.
What images for editorial use are for
Editorial licensing exists so publishers can show the world as it is. News reports, commentary, documentaries, textbooks and magazine features all rely on it.
The subjects tend to be things nobody could release. Think of a red carpet, a championship final, a protest, a busy street or a skyline full of trademarked signs. No photographer can collect signatures from a whole stadium, and editorial licensing accepts that.
In exchange, the use has to inform. Images for editorial use illustrate the subject they show, and they do it in a context that reports or explains.
Editorial does not mean free, though. You still license the image and pay for it, because the photographer’s copyright applies either way. The editorial label only limits where the picture can go.
What “editorial use only” means
“Editorial use only” means the image comes with no model or property releases. So you can use it to illustrate a newsworthy or public-interest subject, but you cannot use it to promote anything.
The budget does not change that. A bigger license buys more reach for the same kind of use, and it adds no consent from the people pictured.
When you can and can’t use a photo
The table sorts eleven common uses. Read each row on its own, because the same image can pass in one row and fail in the next.
| Your use | Editorial-only image | Commercially licensed, released image |
|---|---|---|
| News article or commentary | Yes | Yes |
| Textbook, documentary or magazine feature | Yes | Yes |
| Paid ad (social, display, print, out of home) | No | Yes |
| Homepage, landing page or product page | No | Yes |
| Packaging or merchandise | No | Yesoften with an extended license |
| Email campaign or brochure | No | Yes |
| Brand blog post | Treat as no | Yes |
| Organic post on a brand’s social account | Treat as no | Yes |
| Sponsored article or advertorial | No | Yes |
| Internal mood board or concept deck | Check the comp terms | Yes |
| Agency case study or portfolio | Treat as no | Yesif the license covers it |
Notice that the right-hand column never says no. A released, commercially licensed image can also illustrate an article, so it travels in both directions. An editorial image travels in one.
The plain “no” rows are the easy ones, because agency terms name those uses directly. An editorial image in a paid ad or on packaging breaks the license. It can also invite a complaint from the person pictured.
The “treat as no” rows are judgment calls. They deserve a closer look, since that is where careful teams get caught.
The grey zone
In each of these cases, the publisher and the purpose decide. What follows is a cautious reading for marketers and it is no substitute for legal advice. So take anything high-stakes to counsel.
Your brand’s blog
A company blog exists to bring in customers. So an article on it promotes the company, even when the article teaches something useful.
Certain image libraries treat blogs among editorial uses, but with nuances. That is why the publisher matters. A journalist’s blog informs, while a brand’s blog markets, so treat yours as commercial.
Organic social posts
A post with no media spend behind it is still marketing, because a brand account is a marketing channel. If the post builds the brand, then the image in it is doing commercial work. Some agency terms count a business’s social posts as commercial use for this reason.
The classic trap is the celebrity sighting. Say a well-known actor wears your jacket to a premiere, and an agency photographer captures it. That photo is editorial. If you post it on your brand account, then you turn a news moment into an endorsement the actor never gave.
Sponsored articles and advertorials
Sponsored content borrows the look of journalism, but someone paid for the placement. Agency terms name advertorial use as off limits for editorial images. So the earlier check holds here too, because the piece exists to promote and its images need releases. The same goes for a paid newsletter slot or a partnership post on someone else’s feed.
Pitch decks, comps and case studies
“While stock imagery is not often used in our work, there are times when it’s essential for getting a point across before the creative comes into play,” says designer Leta Sobierajski of Wade and Leta.
That early stage is where labels get ignored. A comp is a placeholder that shows an idea inside the room, and many licensors allow it under separate comp terms. So check those terms, and replace any editorial image before the work goes public. Our clearance guide explains how a placeholder drifts into final creative.
Case studies sit on the commercial side as well, because a case study on your site sells your studio. Jessica Walsh, founder of &Walsh, knows how hard those images are to source. “We are offering some of the case study imagery we shoot on Stills because we know how difficult it can be to find images for your case study that go beyond the typical phone and tablet shots,” she says.
When the photo you want is editorial
You have three ways forward, and they appear here by how often they work.
- Find a released image that does the same job. This is usually the fastest route. Imagery on Stills is released for advertising, so the consent question is settled before you search.
- Ask the licensor. Some editorial images can be cleared for commercial use when releases exist or can be obtained. Many cannot, especially anything showing a public figure or a crowd.
- Get the permissions yourself. You would need the copyright owner’s commercial license, plus a release from every recognizable person and property owner. That takes time and money, and one refusal may end it.
Whichever route you pick, settle it before the image enters the layout. Swapping a photo at the concept stage costs very little. After client approval, though, the same swap costs a round of revisions and some goodwill.
Where this leaves you
Every photo of a person carries two permissions, and editorial images hold only one of them. So run the same check each time, and ask whether the image is helping to sell, promote or endorse something.
If it is, then you need a commercial license and releases. Check the label when an image first catches your eye, because that is the cheapest moment to change course.
And when you want photography licensed for commercial work from the start, browse the Stills catalog.
Frequently asked questions
It means the image has no model or property releases, so it can only illustrate news or subjects of public interest. You can run it in an article, a documentary or a textbook. But you cannot run it in an ad, on a product page or in any content that promotes a business, and a bigger license does not change that.
Not on a homepage, a landing page or a product page, because those pages exist to sell. The company blog is less clear, but the cautious answer is still no. Your blog is a marketing channel even when a post is educational. So choose a commercially licensed, released image for anything your brand publishes.
Usually not, because promotion counts as much as a sale. An awareness campaign, a fundraising appeal or a recruitment post still promotes an organization. So the check stays the same for nonprofits and personal brands. If the image helps you win attention, donations or customers, then treat the use as commercial.
Only partly. A free or Creative Commons license can grant the copyright permission, but it says nothing about the people or property in the frame. Some free libraries state that they cannot verify releases. So confirm a release exists before a free image goes into paid or branded work, or pick a source that clears releases for you.
Featured image by Nathan Phua
