Commercial Use

Depending on where you look you will find many different definitions of “Commercial Use.” But, Commercial Use is loosely defined by whether or not you stand to make money by the use of the work, in this case a photograph.

The easiest example would be pretty much any advertisement you see on television, on websites, or in the newspaper or magazines. If you stand to make money off the use it is a commercial use and you need to be given specific rights by the copyright holder, in this case Wide Open Photography, to use the photograph in the manner you want.

And, in this case, the old adage “It's better to seek forgiveness than ask permission” definitely does not hold up here. Court cases across the nation regularly decide these copyright infringement cases in favor of the photographer making the infringer pay the photographer three to five times, sometimes more, the normal usage fee that they would have normally collected.

You don't want to be on the wrong end of that lawsuit. Please, if you have any question about your use don't hesitate to ask. We'd much rather have a happy client for life than make an enemy over one instance of ignorance.

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