How To Avoid Getting In Trouble Using "FREE" Images

So there you are, typing away your next post, looking for a nice image to spruce it up. You type in the words "free" and "images" and you come across a few websites with a whole collection of free images. You download the image and found that there are watermarks on it. It's probably just crediting the site you downloaded it from and it should be alright to use as long as you accompany it with a "source" and credit them, right?

^{For illustration purposes only}

What if I told you you thought wrong?

^{Wait, what? Source: giphy}

Let me start by saying that I've seen many people make the same honest mistake(myself included) and I'm here to give you some advice and tips so you don't go making the same mistake.

Royalty-free, or RF, refers to the right to use copyright material or intellectual property without the need to pay royalties or license fees for each use, per each copy or volume sold or some time period of use or sales.
-Wikipedia

In short, photographers(in the microstock world we call them "Contributors") create content(images,vectors, footage, audio), upload, and submit them for profit. So you can imagine that they aren't too happy when someone uses their image (with watermark) without paying for the usage.

If you do write for a bigger blog/publications and prefer to have a big selection of images to choose from, by all means do purchase from these microstock sites. Photographers do have it tough now that prices for images are sold cheap, so if you can afford it do support all these awesome creatives! :) Usually you would need to purchase plans/credits instead of individual images.

And if you can't afford to buy said images, this begs the question, "Where can you get free images legally now?".

There is a license called CC0 license (CC Zero not CC Oh) or Public Domain that waives as many copyrights or database-protected content as legally as possible. This means that you can use CC0 images for your posts, blogs and even for your business ads. However, as the images are released as having "no copyright", you are not allowed to claim them as your own and submit them for sale to microstock sites! :)

Here are just a few examples of sites that have CC0 license content:

^{Source: Pixabay}

• Pixabay - Contains public domain photos, illustrations, vector graphics, and film footage.

• Pexels - Offers Public Domain pictures. They have another site for Public Domain footage

^{Source: allopen.org}

• Public Domain Pictures - Specializes in images. Occasionally some shutterstock images will be advertised among the mix. They have numbers attached to the images so it's easy to spot them.

As a small thanks to generous photographers for submitting their images to these sites, what you can do though is donate any amount to them to appreciate them for their generosity and hardwork :)

So what happens if you did use a watermark image? Nothing too major most of the time. Usually the site that you downloaded from will contact you directly to stop using the image and have it removed from your site. There are rare cases when the photographer will hire a lawyer to hunt down all stolen images but that rarely happens. Although the punishment is not too severe, it would be unethical to use images with watermark. It is also common practice that you do not use these images for any defamation or pornographic in nature.

Additionally if you are a photographer, you could make some cash with your images selling through stock too! :D

^{Moneymoneymoney, MONEY! Source: giphy}

I hope this clarifies some doubts some of you may or may not have or maybe this is all new to you! If you have any other questions feel free to ask me and I will answer your questions as best as I can :)

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