Secure Your Rights! (To Photos)
Recently, the news has been full of complaints about AI companies using copyrighted material to train their models, and the lawsuits are piling up. Authors, musicians, major media outlets and all kinds of content creators have pushed back, and courts are starting to weigh in on who actually owns what when AI gets involved. An important case right now seems to point to “fair use” for the materials that get sucked into AI training models.
For nonprofits, this news might seem a bit removed from day-to-day operations, but it’s actually a timely reminder: copyright matters, especially when it comes to how you use your own visual content. If your organization is using AI tools to generate, edit, remix or otherwise alter photos and videos, there are legal risks if you don’t have the right permissions to begin with. More importantly, you have huge opportunities if you secure your rights properly.
Formalizing Your Contractor Relationships
You put a lot of care into telling your story through photos, videos, and other visual content that captures the heart of your mission. Often, these images come from contractors like photographers or videographers brought in for a specific event or campaign. And while most organizations make sure they have permission to use the finished product, that’s usually where the conversation ends. But with the rapid growth of AI tools, it’s time to take a closer look at your contracts with these vendors (and to create one if you don’t use a contract at all).
These days, AI makes it incredibly easy to reuse and adapt visual content. A single photo can be turned into a short video, stylized for a newsletter, or updated to reflect different seasons or audiences. Legally speaking, you can only do that if you have a license. Just having access to the image isn’t enough—you need written, permanent permission that spells out what you can do with it.
What Do You Need in a License?
That’s why it’s so important for nonprofits to get a signed license from any contractor who creates photos or videos for them. This license should give your organization the right to display the content anywhere, reuse it as much as you want, and modify or edit it—including using AI tools. It should also say that the license is permanent, irrevocable, covers the whole world, and royalty-free (meaning it doesn’t require ongoing payments or extra permissions down the line).
In most states, if you don’t have a contract at all, all rights go back to the contractor. In the unlikely event that the contractor merges with someone else, get bought, or just needs extra money, they could come back to you to demand additional payments beyond the initial use.
Getting this in writing doesn’t just protect your organization—it gives you more freedom. You’ll be able to get creative with your content without worrying about legal limits or needing to track down the original creator years later. And it’s good for the contractors too, because it sets clear expectations upfront and avoids confusion later on.
In short, locking in the right license early means your investment in storytelling pays off in the long run. As AI keeps opening new doors for how nonprofits can share their work, having the legal foundation in place makes sure you’re ready to take full advantage.