Free Images?
Using images on your site that you found on the web could be very risky. When I started to write this page I thought it best to do some research on how is the best way to find free images to use on a web site.
10 hours later and still no definitive answer except that any image found on the web regardless of any claims of free use could lead to you being sued for up to $150,000.00 for copyright infringement. Yup you read that right.
I've read many blogs about free images and a few artists chiming in were understanding of the fact that you may have used something you were not aware of being copyrighted and would be happy if you took the image down, the general consensus among all the other artists was that they would sue your pants off in a heart-beat for using their image.
This is a must read article of someone who was sued to the tune of $8,000 for using a copyrighted image.
Using images on your site that you found on the web could be very risky. When I started to write this page I thought it best to do some research on how is the best way to find free images to use on a web site.
10 hours later and still no definitive answer except that any image found on the web regardless of any claims of free use could lead to you being sued for up to $150,000.00 for copyright infringement. Yup you read that right.
I've read many blogs about free images and a few artists chiming in were understanding of the fact that you may have used something you were not aware of being copyrighted and would be happy if you took the image down, the general consensus among all the other artists was that they would sue your pants off in a heart-beat for using their image.
This is a must read article of someone who was sued to the tune of $8,000 for using a copyrighted image.
Google Images
If you follow this search method, theoretically you should be led to free images for personal and commercial use.
1) Type in your search and hit enter
2) Click on the gear icon and choose advanced search
3) Scroll down to the bottom and find 'usage rights', click on the drop down arrow and choose 'free to use or share even commercially'
4) click on the Advanced Search box.
In theory this should filter all the images, returning a search of only free to use images. Although, it is still possible that some of these images could be copyrighted with the copyright data removed and uploaded as free to use by someone other than the owner.
As you can see finding an image on the web can be risky business. There is even the possibility you could purchase an illegal image from a reputable paid image service. And the worst part of all of this is that the end user (web site owner) would be held liable for using the unlawful image and not the supplier of the image.
Now, I've done many hours of research on this subject and have done dozens of web searches to find some clear way of knowing if an image is copyrighted or not. What I found was a bunch of vague statements claiming it only takes a minute to find this info, yet not one single person will say how to actually find the info. Many will say tineye.com is the place to go to find such info. All this site does is give you a list of everywhere on the web the image can be found, but I don't know how this answers the copyright question.
Then there are the sites that sell images, but do they know everything about the images uploaded to their site? I read the Terms of Service on one site and part of their terms was that if you found an image on their site that you owned but did not give them permission to use, you should contact them.
Hopefully Free to Use
OK, so after much too much research I've come up with two possible sites that are supposed to distribute free images. The first is morguefile.com. I'm not totally convinced about this one, read the FAQ first before you decide as there are a lot of stipulations that go along with 'free image' claim. This second site seems to be a bit more trustworthy as to the 'free to use image' claim and that is publicdomainpictures.net.
If anyone knows of a definitive way to find copyright information on images, please contact me.
Originally published 2-1-16
Updated 2-8-16
1) Type in your search and hit enter
2) Click on the gear icon and choose advanced search
3) Scroll down to the bottom and find 'usage rights', click on the drop down arrow and choose 'free to use or share even commercially'
4) click on the Advanced Search box.
In theory this should filter all the images, returning a search of only free to use images. Although, it is still possible that some of these images could be copyrighted with the copyright data removed and uploaded as free to use by someone other than the owner.
As you can see finding an image on the web can be risky business. There is even the possibility you could purchase an illegal image from a reputable paid image service. And the worst part of all of this is that the end user (web site owner) would be held liable for using the unlawful image and not the supplier of the image.
Now, I've done many hours of research on this subject and have done dozens of web searches to find some clear way of knowing if an image is copyrighted or not. What I found was a bunch of vague statements claiming it only takes a minute to find this info, yet not one single person will say how to actually find the info. Many will say tineye.com is the place to go to find such info. All this site does is give you a list of everywhere on the web the image can be found, but I don't know how this answers the copyright question.
Then there are the sites that sell images, but do they know everything about the images uploaded to their site? I read the Terms of Service on one site and part of their terms was that if you found an image on their site that you owned but did not give them permission to use, you should contact them.
Hopefully Free to Use
OK, so after much too much research I've come up with two possible sites that are supposed to distribute free images. The first is morguefile.com. I'm not totally convinced about this one, read the FAQ first before you decide as there are a lot of stipulations that go along with 'free image' claim. This second site seems to be a bit more trustworthy as to the 'free to use image' claim and that is publicdomainpictures.net.
If anyone knows of a definitive way to find copyright information on images, please contact me.
Originally published 2-1-16
Updated 2-8-16
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Sitebuilder Images
RVSitebuilder has a very nice and somewhat extensive image file supplied with the sitebuilder. I was quite excited to discover this fact upon first use. And I was still excited while building this site and using those images. I didn't have to go and search for images, a big plus and time saver while working on this project. I am hoping these images truly are free to use.
The research involved in writing this page was an eye opener to copyright law.
What was really scary, was that most people agreed that if you created the image, you owned it and had the rights to it. Except for one person who said that even though you created the image there's still a chance you did not own it or have the rights to it. What? That has to be one of the craziest statements ever. You create an image but someone else could have the rights to it?
So, your best bet is to create and use your own images when at all possible.
RVSitebuilder has a very nice and somewhat extensive image file supplied with the sitebuilder. I was quite excited to discover this fact upon first use. And I was still excited while building this site and using those images. I didn't have to go and search for images, a big plus and time saver while working on this project. I am hoping these images truly are free to use.
The research involved in writing this page was an eye opener to copyright law.
What was really scary, was that most people agreed that if you created the image, you owned it and had the rights to it. Except for one person who said that even though you created the image there's still a chance you did not own it or have the rights to it. What? That has to be one of the craziest statements ever. You create an image but someone else could have the rights to it?
So, your best bet is to create and use your own images when at all possible.