One of my guests shared a few beautiful photos of my apartment that she took while staying there. I asked her if I could use them in my advertising. She approved and asked to be given credit. If you have posted photos from guests in your listings, what verbiage do you use to give them credit? For example, would I say “photo courtesy of a past guest” and share her name and a link to her blog where she wrote about her experience visiting my city and staying in my apartment? I will ask her how she wants this done, but what is the best/standard practice in your opinion?
Give credit in a watermark or caption. If she took all the photos, credit in the listing copy. You may not be able to post a URL though.
“Photo courtesy of First Name Last Name.” is what you need to say. You can put this in the description which you can write for each photo, or, as Kona sez, put it in a watermark at the bottom of the photo. I would NOT post a URL.
The official way to do it is Photos © XXXX XXXXX
Don’t use © or the word copyright unless the photographer has actually applied for and been granted copyright protection, or you are applying this protection to your own intellectual property. You do not want to imply intellectual protection for someone else unless that is actually the case.
It is the case in the USA be default. The creator is always the copyright holder unless they have given it away or sold it. So, perhaps, knowing the country of the listing would help.
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Thank you for everyone’s thoughts. I guess to clarify further… there could be two parts to it - how to reference my guest is the author of the photos…
(1) …from a legal perspective and
(2) …from a marketing perspective
@anon67190644 I would think whatever legal language I use for copyright will have to hold its weight worldwide.
And with regards to marketing… if you’re a potential guest browsing through photos, what would you think if you are checking out a listing and see pictures that another guest took? To you, would it be just like surfing through any other photos on a listing or is there anything about that context you may like or dislike any more than you would’ve done otherwise?
To me, photos taken by guests add more credibility to a listing and make it more trustworthy because they’re from a third party, not the owner themselves. But if I’ve seen guest photos on tourist properties in the past, they have been in the review sections of a booking site… not amongst all of the photos posted by a hotel or property owner themselves.
In any case, I would not make much of guest photos unless they picture the same areas and things as other photos, but in a much different (better or worse) light. Then, I’d notice that the photo of this and that room, for example, looks different from the prior one I saw. But that is a separate point… As to how I’ll reference it, I guess I’ll just say the photo was taken by my lovely guest and include whatever details they want me to include in parenthesis.
If you’ve done something like this or have seen a listing do it, please do share. Maybe there isn’t much to any of it… it’s a minor question in the larger scheme of things, but I was just curious.