Web Image Copyright is an important part of maintaining the validity of your website. A good website needs to be eye-catching. And of course the way to get an eye-catching website is to use images. And this applies whether you’re creating a blog, using social media channels, creating a bespoke website or using a system like WordPress to give you the architecture.
You might not want to just leave it to your web designer to throw in a few images, but getting the images you want could be costly. This isn’t good for anyone on a budget.
Great news: There’s plenty of images out on the Web; Bad news: there’s so many and they might charge for use. In addition, if you’re not careful you could be violating copyright laws if you don’t choose carefully.
By the end of this brief you will have a greater understanding of the rules around permission of use. Then we will point you in the direction of some fantastic websites offering free images.
Do you prefer lawsuits, and fines, or a few boring moments about coyright law? The answer to that should be straight forward. The answer should be “okay, a bit of boredom never cost me money”.
Whilst it is important you understand Web Image Copyright, you don’t need to know the fine writing in copyright law to get going. But a brief idea of the concepts is essential in choosing images for your website is essential. So, without further-a-do, here’s a simple list of concepts for you to get bored with:
Side Note on Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an internationally active non-profit organisation that describe free licences for creators to use when making their work available to the public. These licences help the creator to give permission for others to use the work in advance under certain conditions.
If you are interested in delving deeper, visit their site: CreativeCommons.org
The image below is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This is a partial from the original image here, Author: foter.com
In Conclusion
Web Image Copyright is important. And having a basic grasp of the rules around copyright on media is essential but will also give you the tools to expedite your selection of images (and videos) for your website, blog, and social media.
Having now got the basics on web image copyright, it is time to move on to out top list of photo and image sharing websites, all of which have at least some limited FREE images for you to use. Although we’ve outlined the general licencing rules here, it is recommended you familarize yourself with the individual site’s rules around using and sharing. They might require you to attribute the author, or limit you to non-commercial.
