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images for website

by Stephen Williams
8 replies
Good morning fellow warriors,

I have a question regarding images from Google and sales pages.

If you take an image from..lets say Google. Its going to be licensed.

So in reality, if I used a Google image, on a website I could get in trouble down the line as far as I know.

My question is, what if you edit the image?
The color or the shading or just change the look of the image in someway.

Is that then alright to use? since, technically its not the same image anymore?

Or does it not work quite like this?
#images #website
  • Profile picture of the author jamescastle
    Well it depends on the source of the photo. But in short, no you can not just edit a photo and use it as your own because you have still stolen a copyrighted image and edited it. However, there are easier ways to get images.

    Depends on your niche and all of course but search for "<keyword> images" for example and see what you find, I sometimes find license-free image directories by doing that.

    However, if you have the money, you can always hire someone on fiverr to do images for you, like photos and such.
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  • Profile picture of the author palmer9999
    Originally Posted by Stephen Williams View Post

    Good morning fellow warriors,

    I have a question regarding images from Google and sales pages.

    If you take an image from..lets say Google. Its going to be licensed.

    So in reality, if I used a Google image, on a website I could get in trouble down the line as far as I know.

    My question is, what if you edit the image?
    The color or the shading or just change the look of the image in someway.

    Is that then alright to use? since, technically its not the same image anymore?

    Or does it not work quite like this?
    Or you could use the images from a user submitted site and just link back to all your images from that easy
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  • Profile picture of the author jgant
    I'll tell you my experience. I outsourced for some sites to be built. They used an image to which they did not have a license. It was my instructions and I paid for them to use licensed images. They built quite a few sites and used hundreds of images - it was a one-off mistake, but still a costly mistake.

    It turned out one image was not licensed - taken from Google images. Getty sent me a bill for $850.00. If not paid, they'd sue. The packet they sent had a printout of the site with the stolen image. I didn't bother refuting it. I paid and recouped the cost from the outsourcing agency.

    Could I have ignored it? Sure, but I didn't want to risk my company and my site being named in a lawsuit for copyright infringement. It was a breach by an agency I hired, but since I owned the site, I was responsible for it. I paid up and worked out a deal with the agency who built the site.

    Now imagine you build up a website with 400 blog posts, each post using a stolen image from Google images or elsewhere and Getty discovers it. That's potentially $850 x 400 ... I don't even want to do the math.

    My suggestion: Get a license for every image you use. I use and have used DepositPhotos.com for years. An image costs $.80 to $1.50. For $99 per month you get 300 images (10 downloads a day). For me it's worth it. There are other stock photo sites - I find DP is a good deal and the inventory is more than sufficient.
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    • Profile picture of the author Stephen Williams
      Phew, I think i have just avoided a few costly mistakes then.

      I shall take this into consideration.

      Thanks again guys.

      Have a good day.
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      Right To The Point

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    • Profile picture of the author HN
      Banned
      Originally Posted by jgant View Post

      It turned out one image was not licensed - taken from Google images. Getty sent me a bill for $850.00. If not paid, they'd sue. The packet they sent had a printout of the site with the stolen image. I didn't bother refuting it. I paid and recouped the cost from the outsourcing agency.
      I have sold my work through Istockphoto and Getty images. But this is exactly why I am no longer doing business with these companies. They only pay 25% commissions to content producers. They have sold $40,000 worth of my files while paying me only $10,000. Instead of paying reasonable commissions to contributors they pay $6,000 an hour to lawyers who send extortion letters to webmasters. After all they don't even own all the images, they are image brokers. Sure I'd like to have my work protected, but I'd rather have better commissions. And of course none of that extorted money ever ends in the actual copyright holder's pockets. This company deserves to go broke.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    Originally Posted by Stephen Williams View Post

    My question is, what if you edit the image?
    The color or the shading or just change the look of the image in someway.

    Is that then alright to use? since, technically its not the same image anymore?

    Or does it not work quite like this?
    I don't think anyone answered that directly. The answer is, if it was a copyrighted image and you edit it, it becomes a derivative work. The copyright remains with the original copyright owner and you'd need his/her permission to use it. You can't start with someone else's copyrighted image and end up with your own image.

    I'm not an attorney, but I have researched this matter. This is my understanding as a layman.
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    Just when you think you've got it all figured out, someone changes the rules.

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    • Profile picture of the author Michael Shook
      In the US, anytime you produce something, image or written work or music or anything, you hold the copyright to that creation.

      You can modify the rights that you keep by allowing others to make use of your image as is or in derivative works. But as the copy right holder you must proactively grant others those rights.

      When Google images first started becoming a big thing, there were a number of challenges to their right to even display the images on their search results, but those days are done. Now if you want to use images that you find on Google, you must find the terms and stick to those to avoid legal issues.

      Far and away the best route is to obtain a license every image you use. Sometimes you have to pay this, sometimes not, and if you want to change the original work in some way, you will need the copyright holder's permission to do so.
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  • Profile picture of the author brenda221
    You can never be too sure about using images from Google even if no one claims the copyright and you have little chances to get in trouble. The most certain way is to find a site that provides free stock images and stick to that one. Depending on the site you choose, the terms of use can be pretty "loose" so you don't need to worry about thanking each and every user on the site or paying for credits before using the images.
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