I'm building a website. It is bigger than just a side project. Found an image on one of the stock image sites, bought it for $20. I use this image as site a logo. I contacted the artist. Asked him to make few illustrations for my website in the same style. He did. Everything fine so far.<p>No I'm thinking about uniqueness of this logo image. The picture was sold for a long time on this (and few others) stock image sites. It is still available there.<p>Should I get (buy) some exclusive rights ? If I do this — what happens to the people who bought this image before?
Should I just add the unregistered trademark™ symbol somewhere near this image and site name?
Should I ask the artist to modify the image to make it unique? (something like adding one or two letters from the site name, "pied piper" style, you know))
> <i>"what happens to the people who bought this image before"</i><p>The people who bought it before still have a valid contract that allows them to use the image, so there's no way you can get exclusive rights to an image that others have already been granted rights to use.<p>If you want exclusive rights to an image, you'll need to get a unique image created for you, which will probably cost you much more than licensing a stock image (since the creator will only be able to get money for their work once).<p>> <i>Should I just add the unregistered trademark™ symbol somewhere near this image and site name?</i><p>I doubt that you can claim an image that you don't own as your trademark.