Decides whether a specific image use is legally permitted, what the license obligates, and whether a model or property release is required - covering CC0 and Creative Commons variants, Unsplash/Pexels/Pixabay terms, royalty-free vs rights-managed, standard vs extended tiers, editorial-use-only, and AI-image caveats - and delivers a per-image license record. Use when someone asks "is this free for commercial use", "do I need to credit the photographer", "can I put this on merchandise", "what is royalty-free vs rights-managed", "is editorial-use-only a problem", or "do I need a model release", or is about to publish, advertise, or sell anything containing a stock image. Do NOT use to find or search for a photo - use stock-photo-finder instead; do NOT use to fetch images via an API with attribution rules - use stock-photo-api instead.
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name: Image License & Usage Rights
description: Decides whether a specific image use is legally permitted, what the license obligates, and whether a model or property release is required - covering CC0 and Creative Commons variants, Unsplash/Pexels/Pixabay terms, royalty-free vs rights-managed, standard vs extended tiers, editorial-use-only, and AI-image caveats - and delivers a per-image license record. Use when someone asks "is this free for commercial use", "do I need to credit the photographer", "can I put this on merchandise", "what is royalty-free vs rights-managed", "is editorial-use-only a problem", or "do I need a model release", or is about to publish, advertise, or sell anything containing a stock image. Do NOT use to find or search for a photo - use stock-photo-finder instead; do NOT use to fetch images via an API with attribution rules - use stock-photo-api instead.
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# Image License & Usage Rights
The license travels with the image, not with the website you found it on - the same photo can be free on one site and cost $500 on another, and the most common violation is running an editorial-use-only image in an ad. This skill decides whether a specific use is permitted, what the license obligates, and when a release is needed. It is the gate before anything commercial ships.
First principle: verify on the source page, never from memory. Licenses change and sites revise terms; open the image's actual license page on the provider before relying on any summary, including this one.
## Operating procedure
Order matters: the use classification (Step 2) determines which license terms even apply, so classify before reading.
### Step 1: Gather inputs
- The image: source URL, provider, and any license/asset ID.
- The intended use: where it will appear, for how long, and at what scale.
- Whether the image contains identifiable people, private property, artworks, logos, or distinctive buildings.
- Whether the image is AI-generated or from a provider's AI tool.
### Step 2: Classify the use first
The same image can be fine or forbidden depending on use. Pin down:… load the full skill through Skill Me