angrypandarage Unsplash, and every so often Depositphotos will do a deal for like $50 for 100 quality stock photos, which I think is worth it considering the time it takes to find good quality free images. ClickWhisperer Be super careful. None of the free sites are going to cover you if you get a lawyer after you for several thousand dollars damage due to copyright infringement. I've seen it happen legit as well as seen the more frequent, less legit, scam threats. It's for this reason I actually subscribe to stock photo services I can expect to be around for the next 5 years. For example, Envato is a great place to start. It's cheap and they have a great library that isn't overused already like Shutterstock's is. LOL
Dludlu ✍️ Thank you so much man for your info I will look into it.
Dludlu ✍️ But can I embed anyones YouTube video without there being a problem?
Radasscupcake YouTube links back to the creator of the video. Random images you find online do not link back to the photographer, and the photographer does not get paid for your commercial usage of the images just from you putting them on your website.
BapaLynde Be really mindful of the free sites – there are a lot of images that are not in fact free, or at the very least require attribution. Ideally, unique imagery is the best way to go (for several reasons), or failing that paid stock imagery offers good protection.
Free sites are an option, but as others have said: be damned careful. chelaberry FWIW, in my SEO research, original pictures you took or created are best. Otherwise search engines see this as 'unoriginal content' and that does not help your website credibility.
But sometimes stock photos, or stock art, is the path of least resistance – if you're going to do this consider doing a reverse image search to see how much that image has been used. You might be quite shocked lol. I used a stock image once, and then was quite surprised to see it being used for the background of the diary room on the tv show Big Brother. I then did an image search and it was used across thousands of sites. It was pretty though!
If you want original art fiver could get you something unique for low cost. Definitely do a reverse search, to make sure it's a new image, and make sure your contract or agreement with the artist specifies a work for hire, where you own exclusive rights to the image across all mediums in perpetuity. Not a bad idea to periodically reverse search it to make sure it that agreement has not been violated, and file takedown requests for anyone else who has used it.
Dludlu ✍️ What if I made it into a pin of my own by creating a whole new image by using a photo editor?
chelaberry You can't start with someone else's art, unless you have a license that allows you to modify it and create your own version. That's copyright infringement. ljc Unless you do so within Canva using their free images……. chelaberry Read the license fine print; some images allow for that others will not. Which is why I said unless you have a license that allows you to modify it. ljc I've just looked into it and I believe you're mistaken when it comes to Canva:
"All free photos, music and video files on Canva can be used for free for commercial and noncommercial use." chelaberry Unless there is some other fine print that says you cannot modify the images and must use them as-is, I think you'd be fine with that. Every provider may have their own terms so just double check each time.
PixelImagination A point to consider: We were using stock photos for the products on our local small business website — 3 months ago, we spent the time to create our own original photos, properly name and alt-text the images, and now we're enjoying 3x more image impressions than our competitors. It was worth it to make our own photos imo, if that's something you have the resources for. gigtime Be very, very careful here. Several years ago, I purchased resale rights to a package that included a graphic that contained four small images layered together. Keyboard, monitor, desk splash of light, etc. Turns out the person I'd bought this from had paid a graphic designer to create the graphics. The freelancer, unbeknownst to the purchaser had grabbed these bits and pieces of photos off the web. I think he cropped and resized a few images and thought no one would be the wiser.
The final image was insignificant. Yet that didn't stop the copyright holder, the biggest and most expensive image site around, from suing the guy that put the package together and every single person, including me, that used sold this product on the web for $20,000. That's $5k per image. It made no difference whether we'd generated any sales from the product. One person sued by the company was a chain of fish markets that had hired a freelance web designer to build their website and the designer used images he didn't have rights to. They ultimately paid over $160,000.
It made no difference that we were unaware the original freelancer had done this. Some people settled. Some went to court. Trust me, you don't want to receive that legal demand that I did.
The way this lawsuit came about is a company developed software that would sniff out copyrighted images online and it worked by looking at the binary info so it could detect even a fraction of a copyrighted image. And this was way back in 2006. Imagine how much the detection has improved since then. Pay for your stuff. Make sure the images include the license. Envato and many others will provide this with each image you purchase. Save them where you can find them if you need them. SEOpreneur If you go for the paid route, go for Canva pro. None of the bloggers are digging up this goldmine! You get unlimited access to all the photos for a dirt cheap price of $13 per month. ILike The stock image sites are great for a certain subset of images, but for everything else I like to use images.google.com: • Search for what you want on Google Images • Click Tools button • Click on the "Usage Rights" dropdown and pick "Creative Commons License" • When you find an image you like, click on it and check it's license • If it's using a Creative Commons Non-Commercial license go back to step 3 and keep looking • If it's using a Creative Commons Commercial license, you're set (although some may require you add a tiny "attribution" footnote to the bottom of your page)
Steps #4 and #5 are annoying (I really wish Google was smart enough to tell commercial and non-commercial licenses apart) … but this approach opens up a wealth of images that you simply can't find on the big stock sites. GrkRuian Pixybay unsplash etc none of this websites hold any liability if you get sued … anyone can upload to them … you must find a company which has idemnification policy in their contract like shutterstock …otherwise when you get sued you take all the responsibility.
