Will I go to jail for this?

- Absolutely no go. It's called stealing. You would be a thief.

- I hope so. I mean I wish you would... although it is not likely.

And just to clarify: even if you give credits to the website and/or the photographer, you still can NOT use it on your website, unless you have the explicit written permission of the copyright owner!

Its more likely that you'd be financially penalised rather than go to jail, but it's still theft.

Use royalty free images or contact the owner and ask for permission to use the photo. It's not too hard to find out where is using your pictures these days, and I'd be pretty upset if someone just stole mine.

Just ask for permission, dude. Maybe offer to link back to the owner's site for one-time usage rights.

Usually not, but there are exceptions.

If you get permission from the copyright holder (in most cases the photographer, or website owner) to use it, then you are okay. Be sure to mention how you plan on using their image.

If you get the image from a stock image site and are using the image within their guidelines, then that's okay too.

It would depend on the requirements of the copyright holder or stock image site. When asking to use the image, you can ask how they want credit to be given.

See above.

It could potentially be a crime, but jail time is rare, unless you really break the law and refuse to follow any court orders. The big problem with copyright infringement, especially on images, is not jail time but money. Images have some of the toughest copyright enforcement, and it's not uncommon to have to pay $1,000s for infringement.

I hope that helps. Good luck.

All the best,
Michael

Use royalty free images mate. just a few cents and U can get many pics related to ur niche.
Why to get into trouble!!

How do you know that they own the rights to it? It could be a stock image. No it's a civil dispute, and doesn't fall under criminal law.

Let me help you out..

morgueFile free photos for creatives by creatives

Have fun

If by "embed a picture" you mean hotlinking, then the website owner can easily see who is doing it and replace the image. Not to mention bandwidth theft and possible copyright infringement

Thank you all for your helpful information.

Btw - Im new in this forum, how can I add a "Thank you" to your posts?
Just wanna show that I appreciate your help.

There is a law that allows use of content for quotation purposes, so if the image you reproduce has low quality and you will provide the resource then you are safe.
They won't chase you because there is no strict guidance as to the quality of reproduction.

Yeah man just use royalty free images. You can go stock.xchng - the leading free stock photography site to get some for free, just make sure you read the license

You will be amazed at how many people copy pictures from other sites to theirs.

If you do decide to use it, you should save that picture to your server.

It all depends what picture you are copying.

If in doubt, buy royalty free. Especially if you're doing web design or something you're going to sell later.

You would get into serious trouble if you did that without getting the permission of the site owner first. Even if you splashed the web site name and mentioned it a thousand times as in the way of giving credit it still won't make it right unless permission was first sought and agreed by site owner.

Just take permission from the owner of the image or you can craft a similar one yourself with photoshop or buy one from stock photo sites. There are tons out there waiting to be purchased.

Definately ask for permission or use royalty free images you can get them free or for a few dollars.
regards
vivi62

Woah, sucked me into this thread with the title there. I thought you'd killed someone or something.

You should be a copywriter.

It's not really okay although I think the group here aren't the ultimate consensus, in another internet community (say torrenting or p2p) the opinion would be opposite.

Facebook was created because Zuckerberg stole images.

An easy way is to ask the creator's permission, if you're nice, it's likely they'll say yeah.

As for how big a crime, the truth is it's unlikely to have a ramification.The internet is a collection of "stolen" images. You're unlikely to go to jail, the most likely option if (and it's a big if - depending on the closeness of your steal e.g if you're stealing from a site who you share users with) you're caught is you'll be asked to remove it and then if you don't you might be given a legal cease and desist.

My former mentor got one of these from Marvel, he put it on his wall.

The absolute worse is you'll be given a fine. When I was starting off a good while ago we were clueless and used to steal a ton of images and it never had an effect. Some will say it's a bad business theory which I agree with but as a standalone act, while I'm not condoning, it's very unlikely it'll have an effect on you. We discovered away to "steal" images from stock photo sites which makes it literally impossible to track but I think it's important to note that it's not a good routine to follow into. Go legit, it might be longer and harder (innuendo?) but you know it's never going to bite you in the ass.

Me personally I don't care if somebody steals my content, hustle and grind. It just means I'm doing something right. I know I'm never going to run out of ideas, I have an unlimited reserve, but I think others see it differently.

If it were to ever effect you, the time and money taken to deal with the problem could be much more than just buying the image.

ask the owner i think he wont sue you or anything like that

Hi there,

You would want to ask that website owner if you can have rights to publish the image on your website. If they give you the green light to do so, then you may need to work out a deal with them. If they give you the red light (no-go), then don't use the image. Keep in mind that the internet is VAST. There are MANY different websites to get high quality royalty-free images from, that may even be similar to what you're looking for.

All the best with that!

It really amazes me that so many people think it is OK to grab any images on the Internet.

A while back, someone was using one of my pictures for their website and an ebay auction. I immediately contected them and asked them to remove the picture. They appologized and did remove the image.

There is absolutely no reason to steal someone else's intellectual property (Images) with sites like: morgue file

Only use images that you created yourself or own the rights to.

There's a law in the UK which is that if you think that something is against the law, but you still do it anyway, even if it isn't actually against the law, you have indeed - broken the law.

... or something like that.

Search stock image websites, you've gotta pay but it's worth it. The quality of the images are higher and you get the full resolution... not a scaled down version of the original image.

lol noone will go to jail for this!

You should always use stuff that you have the permission for it. There are many pictures on sites like Flickr that the author allows the use with attribution, just do an advanced search on Flickr, With the images that come with press releases you usually have the permission to use them provided you give the credit to the site.

If you post stuff without permission you are violating DMCA and you could be sued and your website and business could shutdown.

Always play fair... otherwise nasty things will happen.

Also Wikipedia is full of Public Domain or Creative commons pictures that you can use with attribution. I am running my website off of Flickr and Wikipedia pics with occasional pics that I had to buy and for that there are many good and cheap resources out there.

Actually, if you do not take the file and only insert the URL of the image file into your website (what embedding means), you should be safe in legal sense. Google does it all the time. We all embed Youtube videos--our own or someone else's--without any problems and so on. But, usually server settings do not allow it as nobody is not that interested to lend you their bandwidth. And if it works today, they may take it away tomorrow. So, even though legal, it's not that wise thing to do.

I know of someone who's been using other sites images... What he does is wait for the owner to contact him and ask for the removal of the image... He removes the image and replaces it with another stolen one on the first warning...

This could cost you a LOT of money.

Being a good business person means you can't take any shortcuts.

Wow. people saying they hope he goes to prison for putting an image up what is wrong with you people?

The worst that could happen is they ask you to take it down.
That's it.
Don't worry about it

Don't do it! People who steal images from other people's web sites get sent to a PMITA prison.

Use a camera to get all the free images you could wish for.

Great "George Washington" quote there lol. Much simpler to diy- the camera- or simply get a royalty-free image online. Google "free pictures" you'll see what I mean.

They will just send you a friendly email asking you to remove the picture from your website
.
Just send him an email asking for permission to use it, use an email address different from your "domain email". If we don't reply, then use it anyway - since you tried to contact him.

That's how I would do it anyway.

Last I read it was $4000 per instance. That's why I watermark all of my images ~ will see bad guys in court. A link to my html is fine but just taking an image from that page no.

Embeding an image basically means that the website where you got the image from allows you to embed that particular image. (in that case you can't go to jail)

If you just took the image from that site without any given permission then you're a thief.

Wow, someone ask a clearly 'innocent' question, and he gets bashed.

I think it's great that the OP is trying to get the information, and find out what's the right thing to do. Bashing him is not helping.

That said, as many have mentioned, it's not ok at all to take pics from other sites.

You can get pics you CAN use on your sites pretty cheap from sites like istockphoto.com. Check it out.

BTW: love your thread title - clearly getting lots of attention! :-)

you just have to read and see if you can... read the rules. usually if its public domain its ok, most clipart is ok look around for free images there is tons of it online you shouldnt just go a grabbin lol but all these lovely people already said that

This picture inspried me to create this threat.

www (DOT) facebook (DOT) com/photo.php?fbid=10150498148116840&set=a.10904100183 9.105995.21785951839&type=3&theater

Another quick question:

How can I ever find out whether a picture is copywrited or not? Or else to say, how do I know if its a "free Image"?

You might not go to jail, but that doesn't make it right! If there's an image you really like, you should contact the owner of the site and ask.

Perhaps agree on a small payment, or offer something in exchange? Maybe the owner will be happy with a credit under the image and a link to their site? Its always worth asking, but don't just steal images.

if you actually go to jail i will bring the cigars!

You will never ever go to jail for that! At worst the person who owns the picture will send you an email with a cease and disist letter. At worst they'll take you to court and sue you wich will never happen! It would cost them more money to sue you then it's worth.

Now if you're stealing paparazzi photos agencies have and can sue you since there's allot of money in selling those photos

Will I go to jail for this?>>

As a writer and musician, I respect intellectual property too much to ever do what you describe, but I'll tell you what---if you found yourself potentially facing the full force of civil penalties that might be as much as $10,000 or more, you just might be wishing that jail were an option.

I don't know about you, but it would actually be much easier for me to do 30 days in some minimum-security white-collar lockup than to afford anything in the way of multi-thousand dollar court-enforced fines. Sad but true.

Point is, at least in the US, no they don't throw you in jail for civil torts like petty intellectual property misappropriation, but the horrendous civil penalties they can bring will make you wish you could trade your time (in jail) instead. I see you're from Germany... how about you tell us what they do about these things there?

Remember the lady who they tried to fine $800,000 or something when her IP was traced to a huge amount of her daughter's music downloading? I wonder if she ever wiggled out of that...

That's a total crap... If I take a photo of any classic painting - the copyright of the photo is mine and you are NOT allowed to use it without my permission.

Lot of photographers share their images with Creative Commons Attribution license, you can use them for almost anything...