Mary Kate Loc: NYC

What am I buying??

RobbieAB Loc: UK

I am not a lawyer, and obviously it will vary with jurisdiction, but I believe the governing principle is summarised as "Is the photo of the building, or is the building incidental to the photo?" Where the line lies is a pretty grey area, obviously.

In this case, the photo is clearly of the building.

JCam Loc: MD Eastern Shore

That rule about tripods = commercial photography had to be written by some government parasite that was told to make up a rule for a purpose he didn't understand. Do they also have a fee for commercial photography in the park? Personally I find tripods to be a pain, to use and carry, so I'd probably just increase the shutter speed and ISO so I could hand hold, then take a lot of similar shots to cover the Proper Composition Problem.

waegwan Loc: Mae Won Li

Agreed and that is my point. Even a silhouette of famous cities like New York or Hong Kong are unmistakable. The way things are going a photographer would have to get permission from the mayor to use one to promote a lemonaid stand. I know there isn't a single answer to all this and I've known about it for years, obviously it really pulls my chain.

daveptt

Any Picture Editor would reject it. it is not straight for a start, and you have to respect intellectual property rights or you will get an injunction served on you. everything you don't own, belongs to someone else. always check whats in the background. I think there was nothing illegal with your picture, you are free to photograph from a public place, but would it sell.. No. I have been selling my prints since 1950 and my advice is shoot still life in black & white do a limited number, sign, print and mount them, get them displayed where ever you can, Art shows, Restaurants, Cafe's, Galleries Etc. And the golden rule is :- Don't put them on the web and don't do reruns. Flowers in colour sell quite well.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Frankly, stock photo agencies don't pay squat, unless you have an iconic, important historical image. They force you to jump through all the legal hoops that protect THEIR rear ends. Many of them are slow to pay. And most of them want you to give up all the rights to your photos.

Long ago, I decided they weren't worth the bother.

OddJobber Loc: Portland, OR

Not when it comes to commercial use.
Couple more examples:

The Portlandia statue in Portland, Oregon. The city paid a good chunk of change to the artist who built it. Then in a truly bone headed move a few years later, the city council gave the copyright to the artist. Now the city cannot use images of the statue without paying royalties.

The Eiffel tower. The tower is fair game during the day but not at night. The lighting of the tower is a copyrighted art work.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

It would have been rejected anyway because it's not straight. Stock photos have to be perfect in every way.

bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.

You can NOT submit people or buildings with out a release. Yes you can legally take pics of people and buildings while out in the public areas.
You can NOT sell those pics by law as the person or property owner can file suit. Thus your selling the image and the stock company is selling the image.
with out a release the person will also want to be paid.

Stock sites have 100s of millions of photos on them. when you submit a photo it has to be perfect. You may consider your photos good but others may not. IN the case of the pic you submitted the building is leaning ,that is another reason it would be rejected. I have had LOTS of perfect ( or so I thought) images rejected.
One they said my sensor had dirt on it. I blew up the pic and yup an itty bitty spot was on the pic. I deleted it and resubmitted it. Too dark, too light, not centered ( yup stock companies sometimes want pix centered) but companies like a pic using rule of 3rds so the can put their adds on the side of the image. The same with not cropping but leave lots of space on the image. Companies prefer vertical images rather than horizontal for use on web pages and magazines.
You never see a horizontal image on a magazine cover. You can take pics but you have to know all this stuff if you want to get someone to buy your photo.

My photos no longer get looked at, they go right to the gallery for sale. It took quite a while to get that way. I think I submitted over 100 and not one was rejected.
There was a time when you could make a living with stock, some people are still doing it, but im told they have tens of thousands of photos up and shoot more every day.

and that reminds me, Im gonna go see if I made any money today...

skeeth

What a bunch of BS.

Kozan Loc: Trenton Tennessee

My thoughts exactly. Who would pay for such a picture? It, frankly, is a terrible picture! The building is out of focus, not straight, and I don't see a reason for the photo.

mineart

My goodness, Hogs!

Why all the snark about the image?! The OP did not request anyone's evaluation of the work.

Are there things that could be improved in the image? Yes.
Are there things that could be improved in yours and mine??? YES.

Constructive Criticism can be valuable and inspirational. Dumping on someone's stuff only makes you smell bad.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

What are we? Photoholics Anonymous? A support group?

To be honest people have been relatively kind and restrained, a rational criticism of this image and the issues relating to publication or sale would be quite hard to take, there are so many things that need improvement.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

They are... for editorial, education and fine art uses.

But for any commercial usage... which pays much, much higher licensing fees... releases are necessary.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Most of the comments I read were directed to why this wasn't a suitable picture, beyond the permissions aspect. If I'd have shot that photo, it'd have never seen the light of day, no less submitted to a stock photo house.
--Bob