Is it Yours

Images, we all love them and the majority of us use them. My question is, is it yours to use.

I see a lot of generic images being used on Capture Pages, Web sites and even emails

Now we can troll the internet for a myriad of images, and no doubt we all use the Google Tools and select Images that are set for re use etc etc. Well at the very least we should be, otherwise you can face the risk of breaching copyright laws and potentially find yourself with a very hefty fine.

Other options we have are to go to Free Image banks and select images to use from there, these are not always legit and can provide you with a financial headache so tread warily.

My recommendation is to make sure that you use a legitimate Image bank and ‘pay’ for the images that you use. There are some great Image Banks out there so do some research and check them out.

Also, if you are hiring someone to do the graphics for you then make sure they also send you a copy of the original and an assurance

Also be aware that most image banks have a tiered level of usage that you can use the image for, so if you as well as different resolution images to use.

Don’t throw caution to the wind and do pay for the images that you use

Story Time -Because I love a good story 😊

Back in 2012 when I was first creating one of my sites, I was doing searches for lots of delectable and delightful goodies to use on the site. I am very cognisant of Copyright laws, especially as I was an Arts administrator for 13 years and dealt with many photographers and other Artisans in helping them establish their copyrights. So my search for images was in legitimate places.

I did go to a Free Image bank that had a document that stated that their images were free to use, provided they were not on sold, or manipulated in any way, I selected 1 image from this bank, an image of a chocolate cake.

Great, I can place this on my site, I have the documents outlining the usage, so place it I did.

After about a week I no longer liked the image so removed it from my site.
About 14 months later I received a letter. The letter was from an official image searching Legal company (I checked their credentials) and the letter stated that I was in breach of Copyright for using a particular image. There on the letter was a copy of the chocolate cake and a copy of my website with the image in place.

I rang the company immediately and explained to them the document I had, and the usage of the image which only lasted a week.

They were very good on the phone, and they agreed that the image of the website was from cache and that what they do, is search for clients images to see if they are being used. and this came up as being used with the cached image of the site.

I explained that i had removed the image one week later, and that it was no longer in use. However, they had located the image still sitting on my server, which it was, I hadn’t deleted it from the server.

I provided them with the document that I got from the site where I located the image and they verified that the document was falsified by the image bank and that they were currently in a suit against that company (the image bank no longer exists)
And here is the cruncher

I still had to pay a fine for a breach of copyright, which goes to the Photographer that took the original photo, minus the admin fee of the company they hired to troll the Internet on their behalf.

The technology that companies use to find these breaches of copyright are high level, they do not need a file name , they just need the image

So even if you thing that you have got that image from a reputable free image bank, check again, do your own image search and see if it appears anywhere else with copyright notifications against it

Or better yet, take your own photographs and create your own graphics.
One moment of indiscretion can cost you.

Now this level of breach is not only restricted to the Image realm, it can also be to the written word, Plagiarism is rife, and especially in the blogging world.

I see some Steem members do a search from Blog posts to see if there is any plagiarism and if so they down vote them, and if not they upvote them. It doesn’t take much to do a search for anything these days so be aware because you will get caught out

Be Original, Be Creative, Be Inspired and Be a leader.