The rubik cube is an iconic piece of design that instantly conjurs up associations that for the stock photographer can translate into a whole host of great keywords; think problem solving, challenge, difficulty, success, skill, etc! It has great potential for creating images that will readily illustrate these concepts for potential image buyers. However, it is also the copyright of its creator Mr Rubik and closely guarded intellectual property. This means that images of, or featuring, a rubik cube can’t be used for commercial purposes without thier prior agreement. When I made the image above I knew I’d be marketing it as an RM photo with no property release for use in editorial markets. So, no potentially lucrative advertising use, but otherwise no problem. Or so I thought. The shot passed Alamy QC and was on sale for several weeks before I received the following email from member services;

We would like to make you aware of some current issues surrounding copyright and trademark violation, specifically relating to the Rubik. Simply displaying such images on our website is deemed to be an infringement. The legal advice that we have been given is very clear and as a consequence we have had to remove all images on the site which contain this as the main focal point, or a recognizable part of the image.
Alamy sells to editorial and commercial customers alike, currently the website does not have separate areas dedicated to buying images for one sector over another (as with Getty for example). In the absences of such a structure we have taken the decision to remove the images from the site in order to protect our contributors and ourselves from being involved in time consuming, costly and potentially damaging litigation.

While it was good to hear Alamy are looking out for contributors inadvertently getting into legal problems the frank admission of the weaknesses in its site was worrying. Given Alamy have a strong reputation for editorial images I find it particularly concerning they have effectively told me they can’t market my image because their site doesn’t adequately differentiate between images suitable for commercial use and those that aren’t. The open admission of the superiority of the Getty system (of splitting Creative and Editorial content) in this respect is also interesting, though a quick search on Getty currently reveals a couple of images with rubik like cubes in the creative results. The fact Alamy don’t currently feel able to safely market an image like this illusrates an additional less obvious benefit that may follow once the commercial collection is better established and a distinct and seperate editorial collection is effectively created from the remaining content.

Needless to say I was naturally disappointed to have an image I hoped would do well removed. It only took me a few minutes to legally pull the image of  a competitor at the 2009 Rubik’s Cube Italian Open from picapp, so clearly editorial depictions of the cube are possible. To my mind images of the cube in action should be good for Rubik as effectively free publicity. Just to check their position I fired off a quick email to the people who manage the rights to the cube and had a quick response confirming editorial uses are quite acceptable. They are concerned with controlling commercial uses and are therefore happy for images featuring the cube to be made available as long as it is clear commercial use is not permitted. Obviously an image with these kind of issues isn’t appropriate for microstock licensing but Alamy should really be able to handle it.

So in the absence of a willing and able middleman the image can of course be licensed directly!