Yes, you can use product images on your website, but only if you have the legal right to each specific photo. A photograph of a product is its own copyrighted work, separate from the product itself, and the photographer owns that copyright even if you sell the exact item pictured. Using someone else’s product photo without permission exposes you to statutory damages of $750 to $150,000 per image. The workable paths are narrower than most sellers assume: shoot your own, license through a stock service, use manufacturer-provided assets under their terms, or confirm public domain or Creative Commons status before you upload anything.
Why the Photo Is Separate From the Product
Copyright attaches the moment someone presses the shutter. No registration, no copyright symbol, no paperwork required. Since March 1, 1989, the © notice has been entirely optional in the United States, so the absence of a symbol tells you nothing.1U.S. Copyright Office. Circular 3: Copyright Notice Assume every product photo you find online is protected until you can prove otherwise.
The owner of that copyright holds the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, display, and adapt the image.2GovInfo. 17 USC 106 – Exclusive Rights in Copyrighted Works For product photography, that owner is almost always the photographer, not the brand and not the manufacturer. This is the point that trips up online sellers. Being an authorized reseller of a product gives you no rights at all in the photos someone else took of that product.
The First Sale Doctrine Won’t Help
Buying a product does not license you to copy the manufacturer’s photo of it. The first sale doctrine lets you resell the physical item you purchased. It does not let you reproduce copyrighted photographs. Buy a pair of shoes, resell the shoes. Copying the product shots from the manufacturer’s website onto your listing is a separate act of infringement unless the manufacturer specifically authorizes it.
Where You Can Legitimately Get Product Images
Shoot Your Own
Original photography is the cleanest solution legally and the strongest one for your brand. Your images will not match every competitor’s, and you will never receive a takedown notice over a photo you took yourself. This is the option to build toward if you can.
Manufacturer and Brand Asset Libraries
Many manufacturers maintain media kits or image libraries for authorized resellers and affiliates. Read the terms closely. Manufacturer licenses commonly restrict use to specific platforms, require particular sizes, or prohibit editing. Some brands limit access to retailers meeting sales thresholds or partnership tiers. Terms vary widely, so one brand’s permission tells you nothing about another’s.
Stock Photo Licenses
Licensing an image means getting formal permission from the copyright holder, usually for a fee. Most stock services offer royalty-free licenses: pay once, use across multiple projects, no recurring fees. The image is not exclusive to you, but the broad usage rights and simple terms fit most website product pages. Subscription pricing can run as low as a few dollars per image in bulk. Enhanced licenses covering large print runs or merchandise cost more.
Rights-managed licenses tie pricing to duration, placement, and exclusivity. They cost more, but they can keep competitors from using the same photo. Whatever license you buy, save the terms. You may need to prove your rights years later.
Creative Commons and Public Domain
Some photographers release images under Creative Commons licenses. Two work for commercial sites. CC0 is a full public domain dedication with no conditions. CC BY allows commercial use as long as you credit the photographer.3Creative Commons. About CC Licenses Other CC variants are more restrictive. CC BY-NC, for example, prohibits commercial use outright, which rules out most business websites. Verify the specific license before you upload, and keep a record of the terms.
True public domain images have no copyright restrictions at all. As of January 1, 2026, all works first published in the United States before 1931 are in the public domain by expiration.4Library of Congress Blogs. Lifecycle of Copyright: 1930 Works in the Public Domain For current product photography, this rarely helps.
Finding the Copyright Holder Directly
If you want to license one specific image, start with the metadata. Many photos carry embedded information identifying the photographer. Check for watermarks, photo credits on the page, or run a reverse image search to trace the file back to its origin. The U.S. Copyright Office maintains a searchable registration database, though not every image is registered. Once you identify the photographer or their agency, contact them directly.
Common Assumptions That Cause Problems
“It’s Public, So It’s Free”
An image being publicly visible on the web is not the same as an image being free to use. Competitor sites, third-party review sites, social media posts, and general search results are all copyrighted by default. If you didn’t take the photo, don’t own the copyright, and can’t point to a specific license or public domain status, you need permission.
Fair Use
Fair use is a defense you raise after being sued, not permission you grant yourself in advance. Courts weigh four factors: the purpose and character of your use, the nature of the copyrighted work, how much you used, and the effect on the market for the original.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 107 – Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Fair Use
For an e-commerce site using a product image to sell that same product, fair use is a very weak defense. The use is commercial, you’re likely displaying the whole image, and you’re substituting for a photo the copyright holder could have licensed to you. That combination fails on nearly every factor. Fair use runs stronger when the purpose shifts, such as a review blog using a manufacturer’s photo alongside critical commentary. Even there, outcomes are unpredictable enough that fair use makes a poor business plan.
Trademark law has a separate concept called nominative fair use that lets you reference a brand name or logo to identify the product you’re discussing, when there’s no practical alternative, you use only as much as needed, and you don’t imply endorsement. That covers the name and mark. It does not override the photographer’s copyright in a photo of the product.
Embedding From Another Site
Embedding, where you display an image on your page that is actually served from someone else’s server, sits in a legal gray area. Federal courts are split. The Ninth Circuit has held that you only “display” a work when you store and serve it yourself, which would put embedding outside infringement. Courts in the Southern District of New York have rejected that reasoning and ruled that embedding a copyrighted image violates the display right regardless of where the file lives.2GovInfo. 17 USC 106 – Exclusive Rights in Copyrighted Works The Supreme Court declined to resolve the split in 2025. Treat embedded images the same way you’d treat images you host directly. Get permission.
Customer Photos on Social Media
A customer who posts a photo of your product still owns the copyright. Reposting their Instagram image to your site is infringement, even if they tagged your brand or used your hashtag. If you want to feature user-generated content, message the person, explain where the image will appear, and get their written consent. Save the exchange.
AI-Generated Images
AI image generators can produce realistic product photos, but the output occupies awkward legal ground. The U.S. Copyright Office has taken the position that copyright protects only material created through human creativity. Images produced entirely from a text prompt are not human-authored and cannot be registered.6Federal Register. Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence The Office reaffirmed this in its January 2025 report, clarifying that prompts alone do not give the user enough creative control to claim authorship, and that revising prompts repeatedly does not change the analysis.7U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability Report Substantial hand-modification of an AI output can qualify those human contributions for protection on their own.
Practically, you can use AI-generated product images on your site, but you cannot stop anyone else from copying them. If distinctive visual branding matters to you, that lack of exclusivity is a real cost.
Hiring a Photographer Without Losing the Rights
This is where most businesses stumble. By default, the photographer who takes the picture owns the copyright, even if you hired them and paid the invoice.8U.S. Copyright Office. What Photographers Should Know about Copyright Paying for a shoot does not transfer ownership.
Two mechanisms can move the rights to you. A copyright assignment transfers ownership from the photographer after the work is created. A work-made-for-hire agreement makes you the legal author from the start, but it only works for specific categories of commissioned works. Both parties must sign a written agreement stating the work is made for hire, and the work must fall within one of the eligible categories under federal law.9U.S. Copyright Office. Works Made for Hire Miss a requirement and the photographer keeps the copyright.10U.S. Copyright Office. Chapter 2: Copyright Ownership and Transfer Sign the agreement before the shoot, not after.
Employees are simpler. Photos taken by a staff photographer within the scope of employment are automatically works made for hire, and the employer owns the copyright without a special agreement.
One adjacent issue: if your product photos include recognizable people, most states recognize a right of publicity that requires their consent for commercial use. Get a signed model release from anyone who appears in a photo used to sell something, professional models and everyday people alike.
What It Costs If You Get This Wrong
Statutory Damages Per Image
A copyright holder who registered their work before the infringement can elect statutory damages instead of proving actual financial harm. Ordinary infringement runs $750 to $30,000 per work. Willful infringement, meaning you knew the image was copyrighted and used it anyway, raises the ceiling to $150,000 per work. If you can prove you genuinely had no reason to believe you were infringing, the floor drops to $200.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 504 – Remedies for Infringement: Damages and Profits Those figures are per image. Ten unlicensed photos multiply the exposure by ten.
Attorney’s Fees
Courts have discretion to make the losing side pay the winning party’s attorney’s fees in copyright cases.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 505 – Remedies for Infringement: Costs and Attorney’s Fees Federal copyright litigation is expensive, and fee awards can exceed the damages. This is what gives individual photographers real leverage against businesses using their work without permission.
The Copyright Claims Board
Not every dispute goes to federal court. The Copyright Claims Board, created by Congress in 2020, is a streamlined tribunal for disputes involving up to $30,000 in damages.13U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright Small Claims and the Copyright Claims Board The process is faster and cheaper than federal litigation, which puts it within reach of individual photographers who might not otherwise pursue a claim. Either side can opt out. If you don’t respond, the Board can enter a default judgment against you.
DMCA Takedown Notices
A copyright holder who spots their image on your site can send a DMCA takedown notice to your hosting provider or platform. A valid notice identifies the copyrighted work, specifies the infringing material and where it appears, and includes a good-faith statement under penalty of perjury.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 512 – Limitations on Liability Relating to Material Online Your host will typically pull the content quickly to preserve its own safe harbor.
If the takedown was a mistake, you have a valid license, or you have a strong fair use argument, you can file a counter-notice with your provider. The counter-notice needs your signature, the location of the removed material, a statement under penalty of perjury that removal was a mistake or misidentification, and consent to federal court jurisdiction in your district. After your provider forwards it to the copyright holder, a clock starts. If the copyright holder doesn’t file suit within 10 to 14 business days, your provider must restore the content. If they do file within that window, the content stays down pending the court’s ruling. False counter-notices carry their own penalties. Don’t file one unless you genuinely believe you have the right to use the image.