From what we've learned almost every stock art connoisseur is in violation of their current stock art licenses. So what is the point of all these complicated license when statistics show people aren't using the stock art correctly? We didn't have a good answer, so we made our one standard license comparable to most sites extended license.
We anonymously polled stock art customers ranging from interns to seasoned art directors. We didn't ask where they worked or their names. We wanted honesty. What we came away with was great insight, and frankly some scary statistics.
The cliff notes:
74% were confused by the stock licenses they've agreed to on other sites, and did NOT keep track of agreed to limits such as number of impressions, prints, or expiration dates. 4% assumed they owned the rights wholly with no restrictions. And only 22% felt they understood and followed their current stock art license agreements. Although when we started asking questions we found that "feeling" and "doing" are two different things.
Now for the most overwhelming number of all. 97% of everyone we talked to were blatantly violating stock art licenses they had purchased on other sites. Most were simply storing stock art on a network allowing others in the company access, (yep that's a violation on other sites) but some where sharing, over using, and even reselling... Not cool.
Protecting The Artist
Artists might argue that we are giving away their hard work... So let's quickly recap: We don't offer any license that allows reselling or redistribution of any kind. No partners to keep track of, no third party sites or companies! And the numbers speak volumes. If you upload somewhere else your customers are already re-purposing your work and worse. At least here your customers aren't criminals. Gotta love common sense. : )
Rather than confusing our customers with agreements they don't understand, with usage terms no one is keeping track of, we've created a royalty agreement that companies AND designers can easily comply with, yet still protect our artist!
We don't offer any license that allows reselling or redistribution of any kind. No partners to keep track of, no third party sites or companies. When our artists upload their stock art to our cloud, we're not sharing, and our cloud only rains content to our own customers. -"It's a beautiful rain."