Ask HN: Stock image as website logo: any side effect?

2 points by backend-dev-33 7 years ago | 2 comments

I'm building a website. It is bigger than just a side project. Found an image on one of the stock image sites, bought it for $20. I use this image as site a logo. I contacted the artist. Asked him to make few illustrations for my website in the same style. He did. Everything fine so far.

No I'm thinking about uniqueness of this logo image. The picture was sold for a long time on this (and few others) stock image sites. It is still available there.

Should I get (buy) some exclusive rights ? If I do this — what happens to the people who bought this image before? Should I just add the unregistered trademark™ symbol somewhere near this image and site name? Should I ask the artist to modify the image to make it unique? (something like adding one or two letters from the site name, "pied piper" style, you know))

greenyoda 7 years ago |

> "what happens to the people who bought this image before"

The people who bought it before still have a valid contract that allows them to use the image, so there's no way you can get exclusive rights to an image that others have already been granted rights to use.

If you want exclusive rights to an image, you'll need to get a unique image created for you, which will probably cost you much more than licensing a stock image (since the creator will only be able to get money for their work once).

> Should I just add the unregistered trademark™ symbol somewhere near this image and site name?

I doubt that you can claim an image that you don't own as your trademark.

backend-dev-33 7 years ago | |

You are right. I'm talking to artist about modifying or creating a new image