Legally obtain pictures of IT products, including past ones.

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Peperonix

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Having no showroom, I often need product pictures that I can insert in my hardware quotations.
A nice picture at top of a quotation helps selling as the client can visualize the equipement.

For instance if selling a desktop, I like having pictures of the PC enclosure, the monitor, and possibly also the keyboard.

I mostly sell refurbished equipement and have no partnership with brands that would let me access some marketing materials.

Taking pictures myself is usually painful, because some equipment is stored remotely in my warehouse.
Furthermore it is time consuming as I have to post-process and make foreground extraction in Gimp.

I wonder if databases of IT product pictures do exist, including old products, that one can legally use, without being a distributor of the miscellaneous brands. Either free or paid.
 
I just pulled pictures from google images. Never considered if there were any legalities to it. Considering pictures of these products show up on hundreds if not thousands of websites. Everyone from official dealers/resellers to Amazon and ebay.
 
@mikeroq: I have done the same. It would be very difficult for any entity to claim that using an image of a product, as an identification of that product years after it was new, would be anything other than fair use.

Name any commercial item and there are who knows how many thousands of pictures of it "out there" and unless your use of same is taking money directly out of someone's pocket . . .
 
The Fair Use doctrine stipulates that anyone can use any copyrighted item without formal approval by the holder. But there are limits. So just pulling a pic from out of the ether is just fine as long as it's accurate as represented and proper attributes the copyright holder. Since it's for a quote I'm guessing that you could pull pics from the OEM
 
Using an image to represent a product, that actually matches the product will never result in legal action UNLESS you're doing so in a publicly exposed way. IE on your website.

Even in those cases the worse you'll get is a take down notice, and those are really rare.

What gets you in trouble is using an image of a product to represent another product, or attempt to misrepresent something to be the depicted product. But even in these cases the legal ramifications are almost never enforced.
 
mikeroq said:
I just pulled pictures from google images.
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This is what I do. Just yesterday, was sending quotes for Lenovo Thinkpad laptops, monitors, docking stations, and keyboard/mice sets. I always go to images.google and type in what I'm quoting, usually peel the pics results from Lenovo's formal site.

Fully legitimate use of their pictures...I'm using their pictures (from Lenovo's website)...to promote/sell their own products, accurately representing what I'm quoting.

I also often gather up our own pictures of their products which we use too.....such as a Lenovo ThinkCentre TinyPC in a Lenovo T24v monitor with a secondary T24i monitor.
 
Thank you for all your answers.

I agree that if until know the risks of a legal action are limited, unless you make the pictures visible on your website or elsewhere, that doesn't mean that there is no risk.

Don't forget that in our digital world, any of your customer may transmit your quote to third parties for a second advice, to competitors, a.s.o. You have no control about where your quotation may be published and how the pictures may be further re-used.

Nowadays, search for similar images is already quite straighforward.

Picture metadata, hidden pixel watermarking, timestamps, progress in computer vision, the explosion in computing power, articicial intelligence (IA) and company mergers will make easier and easier to "trace" an image know who uses another's images without rights.

Making quality images takes time. Many photographs make a living of it, selling though picture databases.
By possibly using their pictures without paying for them, you steal their work.

One of my customer (a small one man company) had the bad idea to publish holidays pictures on his website, that he had found through Google. I warned him about the risks but he ignored them.
One day, he was contacted by a law firm, who represented an image stock company, that asked him to pay above 5000$.
He told them the pictures were inserted by his previous webmaster and that he was unaware that images were not legally acquired.
He negotiated out-of-court, and they agree on a payment around 2000$.

If I well remember what I have read about the early days of Amazon, one of the first things they did was taking pictures of book covers.
Scanning images during weeks. Of course, the purpose was different, but by taking product pictures itself, the company could undoublty protect itself from some legal actions.

Around 95% of customers use a GMail or Hotmail address.
If any of the GAFAM acquires an image stock website, legal actions after scanning mailboxes of their customers could be a very tempting additional revenue stream. Selling "big data" is also common nowadays.

IA also offers a huge potential for automating legal actions.

I'm using their pictures (from Lenovo's website)...to promote/sell their own products, accurately representing what I'm quoting.
Click to expand...
Manufacturers can turn a blind eye to the fact that your are using pictures of their current products, as you promote/sell them.
However, if selling their discontinued products (especially second hand), there is a conflict of interest, as "your" product competes with what they are actually selling.
 
I have to say, I have never used or even considered using pictures in my quotes. Sounds too time-consuming to me for little tangible benefit. Of course my stick-in-the-muddiness is well known...
 
I honestly don't think that what the OP is looking for is available (or commonly available) at all. There is stuff in Creative Commons, but that's not going to cover every make and model.

It would be very, very, very hard indeed for anyone to claim that the use of a photograph for identification purposes does not fall under fair use.
 
HCHTech said:
I have to say, I have never used or even considered using pictures in my quotes. Sounds too time-consuming to me for little tangible benefit. Of course my stick-in-the-muddiness is well known...
Click to expand...

I do find it helpful.....

A few years ago as I was starting to really like the "TinyPC" combined with the monitors that have the dock in back of them...to make them an "All in One" type....I took pictures of those setups on a desk in our office and sent to many clients as part of my upsell. "Look at how cool these setups are! The desktop real estate is much more open, neater, less cables, looks great, and no shin-knocker towers on the floor under the desk, or desktop units laying sideways on the desk taking up space!"

Similar with docking stations...not everyone really knows what they are, or..they may just have a faint idea. So it's nice to send picks of a docking station setup..so they can see what it looks like...single monitor, dual monitor, and how small the new style docks are. My prior reply above...I was sending the "new boss" of a >30 year client of mine pics...I just got off the phone with her, have a meeting next week...and we'll talk about phasing replacements of >50% of their ~30 computers starting this month into next month. :D Was she going to get laptops/docks/monitors anyways? Nope! She was just thinking desktops....but she mentioned more staff working from home, so I brought up the topic of laptops and docks....how some of my clients set up an employee with 1x laptop, 2x docks/KB sets/at least 1 monitor or dual monitors for the office, and a monitor for home...possibly dual for home too. So mirroring the computer setup at the office..and home. Laptop obviously goes back and forth with the employee. The pictures I sent her did help clarify a lot.
 
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