You wake up one morning with an amazing idea for a blog post.
You go to your laptop and start writing.
After 2 hours...
You have an awesome post. Now last thing to do is optimise it for humans. So you go and search for a good image.
And you find an awesome image on Google Images.
You go and do what you normally do, copy the best image and put it on your blog.
After 4 hours...
Sky is blue, grass is green and.......
You get a mail from Getty Images telling that you have to pay them $30,000 for using an unlicensed image.
How would that be?
What?
What is that I hear?
Are you saying, "Yeah, yeah, I will not get sued. I am just a small blogger and they will never know about my blog."?
Keep that argument on hold and read this first:
Horror Stories, How Bloggers And Small Businesses Got Threatened
Roni Loren got sued for a significant amount of money. She posted her story on her blog.
If you think it happens only in US, see this forum for a story of a Hong Kong based business.
And then this where Getty Images demanded $4000 for 4 images.
Though many people think that this all is just a extortion tactic by Getty Images, it still is a legal threat.
What Can Happen
If you end up in a case related to infringement, you can be fined anywhere from $400 to $30,000. As the US Copyright Law says, one can be fined:
a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just
Now that is a big sum, right?
Even if you prove that you were not aware, minimum fine is $200.
$200 for one image? That's still too much!
What's The Solution?
Just keep following things in mind:
- Only use images after checking copyright information.
- Quoting Roni Loren, Do not assume image is free until and unless it is proven.
- Learn about different types of licences.
Different Types Of Licenses
Yes, there are different types of image licenses. Even for free, it is much more complicated than "Creative Commons".
- Stock Sites: Most of the stock sites have their own licenses. So be sure to check out the terms before you buy.
- Creative Commons: Creative Commons Licenses are of six types. Learn more about them here: Creative Commons Licenses. Remember that you should be using only Attribution, Attribution - ShareAlike, Attribtion-NoDerivs license types as these are only ones that allow commercial usage
- Public Domain: These are images that you can use without any fear of copyright.
- Copyleft: Many people are releasing content and images that do not have any copyright limitations. These are safe to use as well.
- Others: Be sure to check the license of a website when looking for a image, it may be a different one.
Where To Get Images?
You can get images on stock sites and many free sites as well.
While stock images cost a bit, they are high quality and come without any headaches. Free images are good as well but you need to spend some time to find them.
Here are some sources I have used and recommend:
- iStockPhoto [disclosure: affiliate link]: The site is still one of my favourite sources and is not very expensive.
- PhotoDune [again, affiliate link]: This is my current favourite. I like the fact that instead of other websites where images are "almost 1 dollar", they are actually available for $1 here.
- Creative Commons Search: This is not a site but a search tool for different image sources.
I'd love to give you a long list, but Wikimedia has a big long list already. Check out their Free Image Sources. freestock.ca was one of the best sources in this list. Give it a try!
How To Get Stock Images For Free
Now, there's a dirty little way to get stock images for free, at least 5 of them. If you join iStockPhoto and Photodune[both affiliate links], you can get 4 free stock images per month from iStockPhoto and 1 from Photodune.
I use these two sources for buying most of the images and getting 5 extra images per month for a few minutes does not hurt!
Takeaway
- Check license before you use an image.
- Always include a copyright link below image. Creative Commons needs this and many stock image sites require this as well.
Do you know of any other resources for free images? Have any questions? Do not forget to comment!
And one more thing, do subscribe to Blogging With Success:
About Ishan Sharma
you still have to be carefull with free stocj images. I also heard a story that Getty purchased a website with, used to be, free images and now also sues people who grabbed pictures from that site.
You also don’t know if websites aquired these free stock images legally aswell. I think it’s allways good to write down exactly where you got your images from.
Hi Ishan,
Thank you for this post. It is really nice and also threatening…
Is we can use licenced image by link back to their site?
I am blogging about an actor.. So, I can’t go to the shooting spots or functions that the actor goes.
Then, how to find his licenced images? There are number of sites having similiar images….
How to know one pictures source link or something???
You are doing a great job dude…. Keep work on it… My wishes..
Regards…
Thank you Ishan for recommending my website freestock.ca, I very much appreciate it. When I started pursuing the visual arts in 2005, I had a lot to learn about copyrights, but little by little I managed to gain a more profound appreciation for intellectual property.
It can be overwhelming, especially when one has to read through so many paragraphs of legal text when we would much prefer downloading the image and use it straight away. For the most part, I think people have nothing but the best intentions, but they might be intimidated by the sheer amount of text which isn’t particularly exciting to read through (like for all the times you have to click Accept when installing software).
However, I think you did a great job of writing this article to keep the readers engaged while making them aware of how important intellectual property is. That’s why I started shooting stock of my own in the first place, and offering it for others to use in their blogs for example. It’s my way of returning the favour for all the free images available out there. Just need to know where to look and verify the terms of use.
By that token, I would highly recommend Wikimedia Commons as a great place to look for free stock. You can use it as an image search engine, and for every image you click, the licensing terms are clearly displayed (most of which are free for commercial use, many even public domain).
Cheers,
Nicolas
Hi Nicolas,
Thanks for your comment and most importantly, freestock.ca. You have done a great job with it. You offering the images for free is an awesome example for us bloggers. I am also getting more interested in shooting images of my own now.
Yes, Wikimedia is a great source and I have found many great images there.
Thanks again.
Really appreciated for this informative and new post. really new thing for me i didn’t hear about it before.
Thanks,
Hi Rani,
Glad that you like the post.
Thanks for commenting.
Try http://www.freedigitalimages.net
You can use their images as ling as you credit them with a link back. Just read the terms of use.
Hi Angel,
Thanks for the comment. Glad that you like the post. I will check the website, it looks like a good resource.
Thanks.
I wrote a post about this on my general photography website (I’m an attorney by day): http://wggphotography.com/copyright-infringers-beware/ I know some people think that there must be a copyright notice on the image (the little “c”), but that’s not required. To be safe, don’t use anything unless you have written permission or a license to use it.
Wendy
Hi Wendy,
Thanks for comment and nice tip.
Completely agree with you, we shouldn’t use something without permission or license
Thanks.
Thank you for directing me to these free sources for images. I didn’t know about any of these. And that comment above too about using your own photos is a very cool idea. I’ve done it once or twice before but never thought to do it on a consistent basis.
Hi Lewis,
Thanks for commenting. Yes, own photos can work great. I have took some on Instagram and will be using them soon.
Thanks.
sxc.hu is a free image source. You need to take author permission before you use the picture on your blog or website.
Hi Amrender,
Thanks for the comment. Yes, sxc.hu is another good site. I have tried using it a few times but the problem is that it shows too much ads for my liking. For everything you search, there are more ads for iStockPhoto than results.
Glad you liked the post.
Great post! Thanks for informing people about this topic.
Hi Ishan, you are right – we must be very careful with “free” images. For this reason I use mostly paid images from Fotolia.
Thanks for sharing,
Chris
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the comment. I have heard that Fotolia is a good source as well. However, I have not used them till now. Will try some time in future.
Thanks for your time.
When it comes adding images for blog posts, Google images is an easiest way to find images in minutes, this is common. But people not realized the copy right issues behind the scenes.
I always use images from flickr and provide proper credits to user who updated the photos and used some images that is without any copy right issues.
Thanks to the alert.
Hi Naveen,
Yes, Google Images is easiest but most dangerous source. Flickr is safe with Creative Commons license.
Glad to know that you are aware of the copyright and follow guidelines.
Thanks.
Fantastic post! Thank you! This is why I rarely use photos, unless I have personally snapped the photo.
Now what about people stealing my images and using them as your own, what can I do as a small time blogger to protect MY images? I do have the copyright symbol on all my photos as well as my name and year.
I’ve just recently found your site and it’s a wealth of information. I appreciate the effort you put into your posts. Keep up the great work.
Jennifer Avventura
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks for the comment. Glad that you are on safe side.
As a small blogger, it is hard to sue anyone due to legal costs involved. However, if you find someone who has copied your image, contact and ask to take image down. If they still don’t take it down, you can contact their host. Here’s a post I did some time back about it: http://bloggingwithsuccess.net/find-fight-content-thieves/
Thanks for comment and kind words, they really encourage me write better and put more efforts!
I normally use my own photography on my blog but if I do use one that is not mine I ALWAYS show the copyright at the bottom. And i would hope if anyone used one of my shots, they would do the same. You just have to do the right thing and not forget to give credit for the photographer or company. Good post and good info.
Hi Rosemary,
It’s great that you use your own images. That’s the safest way possible.
I just visited your blog and you have great looks. However, you have not added image copyright notice. For your images, you should always specify a license type, that will help others to attribute accordingly.
Thanks for the comment, glad that you liked the post.