Fotolia - Adobe Stock conflict

[FrankCorn]

I have just uploaded my first submission to AS and its obvious there is an issue with the differing requirements between Fotolia and AS for property releases.  I have lots of images on Fotolia that have identifiable buildings but no property release.  Its odd to discover AS will not accept images of buildings without a release.

As a travel photographer identifiable buildings feature in around 75% of my work.  Is Adobe really going to prevent these images be submitted?

[Abambo]

Fotolia and Adobe have the same requirements but it may be that the requirements where handled less strict in the past. As legislation changes, Stock providers need to adapt. And there may be well that pictures previously accepted, but now in a heavy conflict with the newer rules will be removed in the future.

As for identifiable buildings: if the building is the subject of your picture, you will need a property release. If people are in the picture you need a model release from each of them. If logos are in the picture, you need to edit those out.

If you take pictures of skylines, in most of the cases the picture will be excepted except if people or logos are visible. There are however some strict exceptions: Property release and protection guidelines for Adobe Stock

[FrankCorn]

If images are removed as a result of these new requirements and there is no relaxation on the terms, Adobe Stock will not be of much interest to me.  The leading industry stock provider will get stronger and continue to dominate the market.

[Abambo]

That's your choice. There are people claiming that Adobe handles this to severely. I'm not a legal guy and especially not aware of the situation all around the world. I simply suppose that Adobe is not refusing pictures simply out of a mood.

[MatHayward]

You can view a detailed explanation of our property release guidelines here: https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/property-release.html

Property release and protection guidelines for Adobe Stock

Many buildings around the world are privately owned and you do need to obtain a property release to sell an image of that property for commercial use. As has already been explained in this thread, you generally do not need a release if the building is part of an overall skyline. An example is in my hometown of Seattle. The Space Needle is privately owned and considered private property. If I took a picture of the Space Needle close up and titled the image Space Needle in Seattle it would be rejected.

If however, I went to Kerry Park and took a photo of the Seattle city which happens to contain the Space Needle, that's fine provided I don't add "Space Needle" in the title or the keywords. That is not a picture OF the Space Needle. It's a picture that happens to have the Space Needle in it.

-Mat

[FrankCorn]

Your example of the Space Needle and Kerry Park would require you to answer yes to the recognisable building question and therefore the file be rejected.  The sensible approach would be to provide an editorial image option as others sites do.

The strict application of the property release rules will result in millions of images being removed from the Fotolia files.  This will help to confirm Shutterstock as the leading stock site for sensible photographers who commit a lot of work to generating saleable images.

[MatHayward · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the feedback. Our editorial collection is currently sourced through outside agencies. We aren't able to accept editorial uploads from individual contributors.

-Mat