Free Stock Photos
A few words of introduction first.
Creative Commons Zero (CC0) is a type of public domain certification that allows the holder of copyright rights to waive all rights to their work and make it openly available without restrictions. This means that anyone can use, modify, and distribute the work, even for commercial purposes, without obtaining permission or giving credit to the original creator. CC0 graphics materials such as photos, illustrations, and icons are available for free use, making them a useful resource for designers, marketers, and other creators.
Which stock services operate under Creative Commons Zero?
Here are some examples of stock services that operate under Creative Commons Zero (CC0):
1. Pexels
2. Unsplash
3. Pixabay
4. FreePik
5. Flickr
6. RawPixel
7. Kaboompics
This is just a few examples, there are also other services offering free CC0 stock resources.
Pexels
Pexels is one of the popular stock services that offers free photos and videos for personal and commercial use. All photos and videos on Pexels are licensed under Creative Commons Zero (CC0), which means you can freely use, modify, and distribute them without obtaining permission or paying a fee. The service is regularly updated with a wide range of high-quality photos and videos, making it attractive to designers, marketers, and other creators.
Unsplash
Unsplash is a stock service that provides access to free high-quality photos. All photos on Unsplash are available for use without restrictions and can be used in your projects, regardless of whether they are personal or commercial. No permission is required, nor any payment. Unsplash regularly updates its resources with a wide range of photos on various topics and styles.
Pixabay
Pixabay is a service offering free photos and videos that you can freely use for your projects. All materials on Pixabay are licensed under Creative Commons Zero, which means you can use them without obtaining permission or paying. The service offers a wide range of photos and videos that can be easily found using the search bar and thematic categories.
FreePik
Freepik is a stock service offering free graphics, icons, photos, and vectors. All resources on Freepik are licensed under royalty-free terms, which means you can use them in your projects without paying a licensing fee. The service offers a wide range of resources that can be easily found using the search bar or thematic categories.
Flickr
Flickr is a popular online platform for storing and sharing photos. Users can upload and share their photos and videos, as well as access those of other users. Flickr is ideal for photographers who want to share their work and get a wide audience, as well as for those looking for inspiration and photos for their projects.
RawPixel
RawPixel is a stock service offering a wide range of high-quality photos, vectors, icons, and other graphics royalty-free. RawPixel specializes in resources related to business, fashion, design, and everyday life, making it useful for many different industries. All resources on RawPixel are of high quality and easily accessible, allowing users to quickly find and use them in their projects.
Kaboompics
Kaboompics is a stock service containing a large collection of free photos. Photos on Kaboompics are high-quality and available without restrictions, which means you can use them for various purposes, including commercial ones. The service allows easy searching using the search bar or thematic categories, as well as creating collections and saving favorite photos.
Although if you like to sleep peacefully, it’s worth considering paying stock because there are already specialized firms that deal with crimes related to unauthorized use of images, and the fines are huge. Having a invoice from a stock firm means you have insurance, whereas free stock, you’ll never have 100% guarantee that the photos available on it were uploaded in a legitimate way by people who really created them.
As I see it, I do not recommend any paid stock here but due to the work performed – I deal with building websites and online stores every day, using large amounts of images and unfortunately, I often have contact with law firms that try to “earn” something from my clients by trying to convince them that they have illegal photos on their websites. Then I appear, showing the licenses for using images in the project, and the law firm goes looking for “luck” elsewhere…
You should know that fines of 40-50 thousand euros for unauthorized use of just one photo are not uncommon, so paying a few dozen or hundred euros for a few photos every now and then is certainly not a significant expense compared to having peace of mind because you have an invoice and if someone on the paid stock uploaded non-photos of theirs, it’s no longer your problem but that of the stock firm as you bought photos in good faith from a company that guarantees they offer images in compliance with the law.
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