TurboSquid has historically sold content under the Standard Royalty Free license. This covers most content and most situations, and we have provided Frequently Asked Questions in many languages to help our customers.

TurboSquid also provides an additional option for content licenses, the Editorial Royalty Free license. Our Editorial license and policy allow content to be posted for editorial purposes. News sources, including web pages, television, film, and other outlets have been part of the TurboSquid community for years. This policy formalizes that relationship and allows the journalistic community we’ve been selling to (CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, USA Today, and hundreds more) access to even more of our artist community’s creative work. We provide Frequently Asked Questions for our Editorial license as well.

Rules for Customers:

Content published with the Editorial label may only be used in an editorial manner, relating to events that are newsworthy or of public interest, and may not be used for any commercial, promotional, advertising or merchandising use. However, in certain very limited instances, you may otherwise have the rights to IP in content that is labeled Editorial. For instance, you may be the advertising agency for a brand/IP owner or you may be the brand/IP owner itself purchasing content. If that is the case, you may use the Editorial content commercially, assuming you have the rights clearance through other means. But, you must have all the intellectual property rights necessary from the IP in the content and this is usually only the case for a brand/IP owner vendor or for a brand/IP owner itself. As a rule of thumb, if you wonder if you have these rights, you don’t. It is usually very clearly set forth in a contract. The burden and risk of confirming these rights is on each user individually if they move away from the restrictions in the Editorial license. For everyone else, these Editorial restrictions include not using that material in the following ways:

  1. Products may not be used on any item/product for re-sale, such as a video game or t-shirt.
  2. Products may not be used as part of billboard, trade show or exhibit display.
  3. Products may not be used in any defamatory, libelous or otherwise unlawful manner whether directly or in context or juxtaposition with specific subject matter.
  4. The material may not be incorporated into a logo, trademark or service mark. For example, you can’t use a content under and Editorial License to create a logo design.
  5. The material may not be used for any commercial, non-news related purpose.

Rules for Sellers:

When you upload products for distribution, you now have the option to mark them as “Editorial.” Editorial material is material related to current events, news, culturally relevant, social, and political issues meant to be used for a news-related purpose.
All the regular rules associated with content on our site still apply, but there are these additional Editorial restrictions.

So why did we make this change?

We added the Editorial Use policy because we want to be more interesting and useful as an artist community and resource. We want greater exposure for our members and a greater interaction with news media. In the past, certain material has had to be removed from our site, when that material was clearly intended to be used in an editorial manner, but we did not have those processes set up. Now, with this program in place, we hope to be able to distribute more material as it was intended and also satisfy rights holders that their intellectual property is being treated respectfully.