I dont know what you need but you but these are my images maybe you can find what you need  http://semmickphoto.com/

I believe part of the legal language relates to how you use the image.  Sensitive use is highly restricted and the end user is responsible for using images within those terms.  If you are using people pics to imply a political endorsement or suggesting the image is someone involved in child porn you are on the hook for legal action should the model come after you with their lawyers, not the site that sold you the image.

If you are blogging about the health benefits of natural foods and want to include images of various meals you have little to be concerned about.

I guess it's safest to buy directly from artists/photographers.

As a buyer, how would one know which were safe?
Someone could set up as a direct seller selling stolen images just as easily as they could give them away as CC, and more easily than they could sell via a stock site.

If you are using them in a way that looks like the model or property is representing your point of view or product, then you need those releases.

Is that the same for all the Symbio sites?
I just ask because iS and probably several others don't allow uses which suggest a model is endorsing a view or product. Is there one central 'conditions of use' for symbiostock?
Before you ask, I did try to find out for myself by going to www.symbiostock.com, as though I was a buyer, and couldn't see any easy way of finding that out. Or, indeed, how to find an image, far less buy one.

I think using an established stock site is going to get you as close to safe as you can get. Those images have been vetted more, and they've been purchased repeatedly so they probably would have been pulled if there were issues with them.

Which site you use depends on the volume you plan to purchase. If you need a new image every day, Shutterstock is probably the place. If you just need to buy one image every once in a while, then Fotolia or Dreamstime would probably be better.

The best of both worlds would be for you to see if there's an image on a stock site, and then contact the photographer for a direct purchase on a symbio site or something similar. You can do that by doing a google search by image once you find the one you like. 

Quote from: steheap on Today at 10:17
If you are using them in a way that looks like the model or property is representing your point of view or product, then you need those releases.

Is that the same for all the Symbio sites?
I just ask because iS and probably several others don't allow uses which suggest a model is endorsing a view or product. Is there one central 'conditions of use' for symbiostock?
Before you ask, I did try to find out for myself by going to www.symbiostock.com, as though I was a buyer, and couldn't see any easy way of finding that out. Or, indeed, how to find an image, far less buy one.

Yes, I meant that a commercial image with releases can be used to promote a product or a position - not that the specific person likes that product. There is no central set of Terms and Conditions for the Symbio sites - but the above comment is common across all images with releases - that is the whole point of a commercial stock image.  The images can be searched at http://symbiostock.info/ not at the site you referenced, which is more about the project itself.

Steve

I think using an established stock site is going to get you as close to safe as you can get. Those images have been vetted more, and they've been purchased repeatedly so they probably would have been pulled if there were issues with them.

If I made money off of every image that mistakenly made it through that vetting process, I'd probably be a rich man. That said, you are probably going to get better legal protections and legal guarantees from larger sites that offer them (even if the images themselves aren't as legitimately verified like buying direct from an artist).

Glad you found a site you're comfortable with.

...After searching a lot, I decided to use 123rf so far. Their prices are reasonable (for me as a buyer at least), and they offer a legal guarantee up to 25,000 dollars.

I would honestly love to buy directly to photographers so that they get more income, but I don't want to take any risk.

I'm glad you found something that worked for you, but wanted to point out a couple of things about the issues of risk as a blog publisher.

1) If you purchase a license from one of the established microstock agencies, this is a very different thing from using free images from a file sharing site (which is what Flickr is). You are not free of risk in either, but you have virtually zero risk in the former (because the stock sites are pretty vigilant about stolen content - their business depends on their reputation) and lots in the latter (because Flickr exercises no control over what people upload; they just respond to DMCA requests if submitted).

2) You don't want to get sued - legal guarantee or not. It's a massive hassle and the loss of time and energy is costly even if someone is eventually going to pay the bills. I've been selling stock via the microstock agencies since 2004 - and more recently via my own site - and I don't know of more than a handful of legal issues in that time. And those issues were things like a high end designer furniture maker going after Getty for its chairs being in the background of a shot, and the artist who did Seattle's dancing feet sidewalk sculpture going after a photographer who shot a model and that sidewalk and offered it as stock. I know of many instances of Getty going after people who didn't buy licenses from anyone and used images they found.

My point is that as a blogger, your biggest risk is not buying licenses, not from whom you purchase them

3) Google image search can be your friend if you're trying to be sure you're not buying a stolen image. You find something you like at an artist site or agency site and give the URL for the image (not the page) to Google image search.

If you then see links to the image from multiple agencies, all with the same name (I used one of my images for this example), you can feel confident you're not buying stolen works. A few people might cheat at one agency for a month or two, but they always get caught (there are a lot of us, worldwide, keeping an eye on our stuff and the agencies).

This also works if you see an image in another blog and you'd like to license it. In Chrome you can just right click on the image and "Search Google for this image". Up come links to the image at CanStock, 123rf, Dreamstime, etc., again letting you be comfortable that this is an image you can safely license.

The agencies have the legal caution in their verbiage because you can always use an image, as noted above, in ways that go beyond what the license allows.

Hope this helps a bit

...One thing troubles me though. You can get sued for using a picture without a licence. But how can they possibly know you don't have a licence?
Many images seem to be sold by several agencies, and I guess that Getty wouldn't know if I bought an image they sell on another website, or would they?

Getty is a bit different. They use something called PicScout that they bought out. Lots of Getty content is available from multiple sources though, as is lots of the content from other agencies. Getty has been the most aggressive in pursuing legal action (versus just a demand for a retroactive license). I don't recall any case where an image was licensed from one agency and another agency pursued the user - as long as you keep track of all your licenses, it's not going to be a problem.

But how can I keep track of my licences? When I buy on 123rf of Bigstockphotos, I don't get a receipt for each photo. All I see is that the photo is available to download and that I used credit point.

But if one day the sites close, I won't have any proof that I bought the pictures there.

Invoice?

P.S. Kielo is flower in Finland.. lily-of-the-valley