Pixabay Images Can No Longer Be Used For Commercial Purposes UNLESS Edited

[CreativeLeahG]

For those unaware, a while back Pixabay changed their terms of use, hence this update for your protection.

https://pixabay.com/service/license-summary/

They also state: "Please be aware that certain Content may be subject to additional intellectual property rights (such as copyrights, trademarks, design rights), moral rights, proprietary rights, property rights, privacy rights or similar. It is your responsibility to check whether you require the consent of a third party or a license to use Content."

And via https://pixabay.com/service/terms/

• You cannot sell or distribute the Content (either in digital or physical form) on a Standalone basis. This includes selling or distributing Content on a Standalone basis as an image, audio, video, NFT or other digital file (including through a stock media platform), as well as a print, wallpaper, poster or on merchandise or on other physical products.

  When we refer to "Standalone" we mean where no creative effort has been applied to the Content and it remains in substantially the same form as it exists on the Services. To help illustrate this, here are some examples:

  • using the Content in its original form or solely using a filter, changing colors, resizing or cropping the Content remains Standalone use.
  • using the Content with a combination of images, videos, audio files, other media, text, illustrations, background features and editing techniques is not Standalone use, so long as the combined effect is to make a "new" creative work.

[ElizabethR]

Need clarification???

Can you use it as an illustration for a blog in standalone format. We have never been into stock photos until we needed illustrations for our blogs, so we don't know the ins and outs.

[CreativeLeahG]

You wouldn't be selling it so I assume that would be ok.

Also any images downloaded under the old terms would be covered by those older terms. I can't see when they updated these terms, however. 

[ElizabethR]

Thank you. 

[Cat]

I think they updated it in 2019.

[CreativeLeahG]

Wow, time flies doesn't it! So scary.

[Lais]

hey, @CreativeLeahG, thank you for the update!

I believe a good piece of advice when one is uncertain about using a Pixabay image is this: always send a message to the creator asking about it.

[J32Design]

This has been the case for many years now. Pixabay was originally licensed CC0 (public domain) before 2019 and technically the images uploaded to pixabay before 2019 should still be CC0. However, anything uploaded since then has been under the license you mentioned above since January 2019.

Uploaders to Pixabay back then started to complain about people selling their images, not realizing that when they upload their images to Pixabay it will be placed under CC0 license and will have no restrictions.  The owners of Pixabay changed the license terms then and there was a big discussion about it on their forums.

[DesertSky]

I'm not really sure what they mean by "distribute" but it's my understanding that as long as you don't sell the image it can be used on a standalone basis for placeholder images (with forcing customer to change the image) and store banners. I'm curious, is this how others understand it as well? Thanks in advance for any replies. 

[DesignerArtist]

Hello

What about background images? If you add text with this image, is it ok to use?

Thanks