Unsplash

One of the pioneers of the copyright-free photography model,[10] Unsplash was created in 2013 by Montreal-based entrepreneur Mikael Cho. While creating a new homepage for his company Crew, Cho was unable to find a suitable stock photo and hired a photographer instead.[11] Afterwards, Cho posted the outtakes from his company photoshoot on Tumblr, inviting people to use them as they saw fit.[12]

Before June 2017, photos uploaded to Unsplash were made available under the Creative Commons zero license, which is a public domain equivalent license and a waiver, which allowed individuals to freely reuse, repurpose and remix photos for their own projects. This was changed in June 2017, and photos are now made available under the Unsplash license, which imposes some additional restrictions.[13] Unsplash received more than 50,000 visits on its first day.[11]

On 18 February 2018 Unsplash changed its license terms to restrict the sale of photos without first updating, modifying, or otherwise incorporating new creative elements into the photos, prohibiting selling unaltered copies, including selling the photos as prints or printed on physical goods.

While Cho supplied the first batch of Unsplash photos, the site is now sustained by community contributions from amateur and professional photographers. Due to the volume of photo submissions, the site employs an editorial team and "curators" picked from the Unsplash community, including Guy Kawasaki, Nas, Khoi Vinh, Amanda Hesser and Om Malik.[14]

Unsplash photos are covered by the Unsplash license, which is similar to a Creative Commons zero license. The difference between a CC0 license and the Unsplash license is the Unsplash license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service.[15] Both licenses give viewers the right to "copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer or Unsplash"[13] but the Unsplash terms of service prohibit selling unaltered copies, including selling the photos as prints or printed on physical goods.[16] Until June 2017, Unsplash photos were covered by the Creative Commons zero license itself.[17]

The lack of attribution for Unsplash photos have been the subject of controversy among photography circles,[18] due to some companies using free Unsplash photography for profit without compensating the photographers. Unsplash itself has stated that it does not support the practice.[13]

In 2016, Unsplash released the Unsplash Book, the world's "first ever fully crowd-sourced" book.[19] The book's photos, essays, and funding were all contributed by Unsplash's community.[20] The book raised $106,000 on Kickstarter and included contributions from Harvard law professor and CC0 inventor Lawrence Lessig, and designer Tobias van Schneider.[21]

In addition to its website, Unsplash provides a public Application programming interface (API) that powers more than 1.1 billion photo requests per month.[22] Some of the products relying on the Unsplash API include Medium, Trello, Squarespace, Codepen, Square as well as Unsplash own series of products such as Unsplash for iOS, Unsplash Instant, an extension for Google Chrome that loads Unsplash photos in new tabs and Unsplash for Apple TV.[22]

Beyond its website and API, Unsplash hosts photo walks in cities around the world including Tokyo, Montreal, and Boston.[23][24] The photo walks are hosted by guides from the Unsplash community who show participants the best places to take photos in their city, how to use their cameras, and how to compose better photos.[25]

• Official website