Sellin' T-shirts

November 25, 2018 9:58 AM

I would like to create and sell images online for T-shirts, cards, and whatnot. I have some questions mainly about copyright on stock images and fonts, but any suggestions for the most hands-off platforms for this sort of thing would also be appreciated.

For some of the ideas I have, I would like to use stock photos of animals, natural places, etc. If I buy a stock photo, does that mean it's mine to use commercially however I would like? Can I then plaster it all over T-shirt designs? If something is "royalty-free," does that mean I can go hog-wild with it and not spend a dime?

If I am mistaken in my above assumption, how could I obtain photographs of sometimes obscure animals and the like? I could draw them myself, but in some cases the image I'm thinking of would work best with an actual photo.

I also was wondering about fonts. I would probably be designing these things in Photoshop. Am I free to use all the fonts in Photoshop for this purpose? If I buy and download a font, am I once again able to use it for my own commercial purposes?

Lastly, a quick web search assures me there are a plethora of places to sell stuff like this online, but if anyone has any personal experience with different sites, good or bad, I would love to hear it. I am interested only in providing an image and letting someone else do the printing/shipping, etc. I bought something once from Fine Art America and it was a pretty terrible experience from the buyer's side, so I'll probably be avoiding them.

Thanks!

posted by whistle pig to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

When I used iStockphoto many years ago, I remember you had to pay extra if the image was being used on a product or on a very large scale or in other special circumstances. I only ever used iStockphoto so I don't know about other companies, but I would imagine they would all have some way for you to achieve this for an additional fee.
posted by rakaidan at 10:46 AM on November 25, 2018

The short answer is "read the included licenses".

Broadly speaking, when you license something (like a photo or a video) from Shutterstock, Getty, etc, you have to declare how do you intend to use it. For instance, a photo might be $50 for personal use, $75 for print, $100 for online use and $200 for commercial use, and some places also have tiers according to the size of the operation (so that, for instance, you wouldn't pay the same as those huge tshirt companies) and according to visibility (a stock photo for internal communications might be cheaper than one for public use) and whatever else they think of. There's also a wide world of Creative Commons photography, and a lot of different licenses, some which allow commercial use or not.
Fonts, same thing. there are a lot of fonts free for personal use, but require contacting the author to clear for commercial uses. Commercial use for fonts included with Photoshop is ok, covered by the EULA (IANAL).
posted by lmfsilva at 10:48 AM on November 25, 2018 [3 favorites]