Images for your website

Where do you obtain the images you use on your website? Do you just "take" or "borrow" photographs wherever you see them on the internet? Perhaps you give a credit as though that is enough when you do not have permission of the person who took the photograph (the copyright owner) to use the image.

Copyright infringement - possible consequences

Things may go alright for you and the copyright owner does not complain to you. It is possible for a copyright owner to undertake a reverse image search and discover who else on the web might be using their images possibly without permission. If they feel strongly about it they may request you to take down the images perhaps going as far as issuing a "Cease and Desist" letter with the promise of further action if you do not cease and desist using their images.

Copyright Compliance Officers acting as agents for large media organisations use web bots to search down unauthorised us of their client's images. The first you will hear of it is if you receive an e-mail asking you to produce your licence that you have been given permission to use the particular image. When you are not able to produce such licences demands will be made for payment of licence fees for past use of the images with the promise of escalation through legal channels if you do not comply.

Consequences of copyright infringement are less likely when infringing images are uploaded to facebook simply because it is harder, possibly impossible to obtain contact details for facebook users unless they wish to give them. Website owners generally have contact details... physical address, telephone number, e-mail address etc to permit their customers/clients to contact them.

So how do you get round this minefield of possible copyright infringement? Simple really (though mistakes can slip through) by only using images where you know you have permission to use the image for your intended purpose.

Sources of images

If you take the photograph yourself you have no problem using the photograph for whatever purpose you wish as you are the copyright owner. There might be restrictions if the photograph includes people but if you are taking photographs in public spaces people could often be in those places and the law recognises that a person cannot insist on their privacy in a public space and the liberty of photographers to take photographs in public spaces (hence the difficulty of regulating papparazi).

Secondly if someone you know personally has taken the photograph and you have their permission, even if informally, to use the photograph you are on safe ground. The copyright still remains with the person who took the photograph, you are merely being "licenced" to use it under the agreed conditions.

Copyright and Licencing

As has been pointed out the person who has taken the photograph has the right to decide how they use the photograph and if they wish to permit others to use the photograph and under what terms.

If you come across an image online that is not part of a "Stock photo" site then the responsibity is on you to find out who the copyright owner is and obtain permission from them to use the image before using the image.

Just something to touch on here I have mentioned "photographs" and "images". All photographs are images, but not all images are photographs. Clearly photographs have been taken with a camera, images can be created with graphic and design programs as well as being photographs. The reason the copyright owner has a copyright is that they have created a piece of visual art and they have a right to determine how it can be used.

Licencing and Permission

Rights Managed Images
This is when a Media company decides based on the image and the intended usage the licencing fee it will charge. So for usage in printed format... books, magazines etc it will be a charge for one edition. In the case of usage on a website the fee will allow display for a set period usually one year at a time, further charges will be made for subsequent time.

Royalty Free Images/Stock Photos
First understand that these images are not "free" images ie without a cost. Royalty Free images is the term given to images that for a set fee allows the licensor unlimited use with no time limit to use the image within the terms of the licence. Note that the Copyright owner can allow multiple persons to use the image. The charges for a licence are much less than the licences charged for Right Managed Images.

Free Stock Images
Here the Copyright holder allows free use of the images with certain licence restrictions which are laid out, eg you may be allowed to use them for any use or just for non-commercial use. You will not be allowed to download multiple images and set up your own stock photo gallery offering images for sale. It is common courtesy to include a credit link to the creator of the image in the media in which you use the image.

Creative Commons Licences
There are a range of Creative Commons licences that allows the Copyright owner a way of setting out clearly the terms under which the images can be used. Creative Commons licensors do not have to pay any fees. It is essential however that licensors do correctly credit the Copyright holder with the appropriate copyright statement which is provided.

Public Domain Licences
Copyright holders who assign their work to the public domain place no restrictions on who uses their work and for what purpose. It is normal to credit the image as being public domain. Many of the images that appear on Wikipedia have either Creative Commons or are Public Domain images.

Obtaining Stock Photos

We suggest you browse a number of the popular Free Stock Photo websites and download the images of interest, some of the websites require you to register for a free account in order to download images. You can also upload your own images for them to be made available to others from the website but it is likely that the stock photo site will have very high quality standards you will have to meet for your images to be accepted.

The Free Stock Photo websites make their money by acting as affilates for Royalty Free Stock Photo websites displaying some images for which a fee will be required. It will quickly become apparent which those images are! Some of the "Free Stock" Photo sites also offer "Premium" images for which they request a fee along the lines of them being offered under a Royalty Free licence.

The persons who submit their images to the Free Stock Photo websites receive no monetary gain, they do it just for that "warm fuzzy feeling" people talk about. Web designers with limited budgets appreciate these people very much.

Check out these details of Free Stock and Royalty Free Stock Images

Stock Photos

Free Icons