10 years, 9 months ago-
Posts
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Hey everyone. I thought this might be of interest to you. I have heard numerous times that using a photo off of the internet (that is not common license or bought) with just a photo credit listed can get you in trouble. Here is a BlogHer article from a woman that got sued over a photo she didn’t have permission to use.
http://www.blogher.com/bloggers-beware-you-can-get-sued-using-photos-your-blog-my-story?page=0,0
I use photos almost exclusively from Fllickr Creative Commons, IStock Photos, brands (provided to me) if I am not using photos I took myself. However, I have been known to sneak in one here or there that I don’t have permission for…especially on Facebook. I just hold my breath, cross my fingers, figure the risk of making someone mad is low and hope said mad person goes easy on me.
To complicate things further, borrowing an image directly from a website without permission is a clear violation. The waters get murky when you borrow images from a third-party site like Pinterest. The bottom line is though that if the owner of said photo didn’t give you permission, they can at least pursue legal action. Whether they win or not I am sure we can all agree it would be a real headache.
Where do you get your photos from for your blog?
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I mostly use my own photos but sometimes I throw in one from somewhere else. A few years ago, before I knew any better I used someone else’s picture on a post without their permission. Well 2 years later she contacted me and told me to take it down or give her credit for it, she was not very nice and I understand why. After I apologized and gave her credit, she was fine. I didn’t like the feeling at all that someone thought I stole something from them, but that is exactly what I did. Lesson learned!
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THANK YOU for posting this! I can’t begin to tell you the number of blogs that I see on a daily basis that violate this and sadly, they are NOT a part of this group.
When I first began blogging I was guilty of using photos that I shouldn’t as well. Like you, every now and then I will “sneak” one in.
About 99% of the time they are photos that I have taken or photos that a company has given me to use.
Thanks for posting sites that we may use where we may find “legal” photos
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@Jennifer – thanks for sharing your experience.
@Caren – As I said, in a moment of weakness I have grabbed a random photo from somewhere and used it without permission. It happens so seldom I can’t remember any specific ones though (so it would be a shock if anyone ever came after me. ha, ha). However, I DO see a lot of people using photos without permission. Without pointing any fingers, I know of one Facebook page where at least 80% of what they share is borrowed from somewhere…usually Pinterest. The other day they used one of my photos. They know me but I admit that Chester and Gretel weren’t immediately recognizable in the photo. I contacted them and asked them to credit me and they did but used the excuse that they got the photo from Pinterest and once a few people pin it the original source is lost. In some cases this is true but I am SURE I attached a website/URL to the photo. Had they clicked on the photo and clicked “view website” they would have easily found it was mine.
Sounds like I am preaching to the choir but how it should work is this: 1) use your own photos, paid photos or photos from a site with a creative commons license and you won’t have problems 2) If you want to use another photo, find the source and ask permission (most people will be happy you asked and say yes) 3) If you can’t find the source to ask then don’t use it. Move on to option 1 or 2.
@Lenore – I think you are fine with reblogging…..IF the original blogger has permission to use the photo. I am not positive on that though.
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I use photos I’ve taken or photos that my husband’s taken because I never wanted to have to “hold my breath.” I rarely use someone else;s – but when I do, I ask permission. (Pinterest is quite the murky area and rather than worry about that, my practice is never to use any photos from Pinterest outside of that platform.)
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Wow! That’s jaw-dropping. I was about to, for the first time ever, use a photo off the internet for my blog. I had googled fireworks and dogs, and a list of images came up. I thought these were safe to use. I think I’ll just stick with using my own pictures, even if they’re not an exact fit.
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Now I DO share from Facebook but I always credit the page where I saw it (if it is a Meme or something like that). On Pinterest I link to wherever I posted it from. I don’t steal!!!!
Jessica/YDWWYW/PetTalkMedia said:
@Jennifer – thanks for sharing your experience.
@Caren – As I said, in a moment of weakness I have grabbed a random photo from somewhere and used it without permission. It happens so seldom I can’t remember any specific ones though (so it would be a shock if anyone ever came after me. ha, ha). However, I DO see a lot of people using photos without permission. Without pointing any fingers, I know of one Facebook page where at least 80% of what they share is borrowed from somewhere…usually Pinterest. The other day they used one of my photos. They know me but I admit that Chester and Gretel weren’t immediately recognizable in the photo. I contacted them and asked them to credit me and they did but used the excuse that they got the photo from Pinterest and once a few people pin it the original source is lost. In some cases this is true but I am SURE I attached a website/URL to the photo. Had they clicked on the photo and clicked “view website” they would have easily found it was mine.
Sounds like I am preaching to the choir but how it should work is this: 1) use your own photos, paid photos or photos from a site with a creative commons license and you won’t have problems 2) If you want to use another photo, find the source and ask permission (most people will be happy you asked and say yes) 3) If you can’t find the source to ask then don’t use it. Move on to option 1 or 2.
@Lenore – I think you are fine with reblogging…..IF the original blogger has permission to use the photo. I am not positive on that though.
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I try to use my own photos as much as possible, but then I think people get tired of seeing my mutts faces on everything. I always ask brands if they have images they would like used, and 99.9% of the time they say they’d love to see pics of my pets using the item. So, no break there.
The site I use frequently for “safe” photos is called PhotoPin – it pulls from Flickr Creative Commons photos – and gives you a great little HTML snipped to post into your picture caption so it is attributed properly and neatly with links to the original source. There is an example of how the PhotoPin picture caption looks in this post. Btw, it was hard to find a picture of a dog with a vet that didn’t look like at least one of them was miserable!
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Creative Commons has a website that you can use to search: http://search.creativecommons.org/ I use flickr and media wiki commons files all the time. Make sure to check the boxes for commercial use (if you have ads) and modify (if you plan on making any changes to the image) Just make sure that you credit the source correctly.
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I read that blogher post a while back and it scared me away from Pinterest and since then I only use my own photos on both my blog/Pinterest. I sometimes also use flickr for my blog. I haven’t gone back and taken down the few photos I ‘stole’ from elsewhere in the past on my blog. (They are few and far between, as most of the pics are just my own dogs, but I wonder if I should take them down…) The blogher story made me want to delete my Pinterest boards but I left them up, and now only add my own pics. Pinterest seems like a lotta lawsuits waitin’ to happen….
The one thing I still do that I’m not sure about is posting videos on my blog from YouTube – they will take a viewer back to the source on YouTube, so not sure what the legality is there… Maybe I should stop doing that? And I did post a couple of gifs the other day on my blog – that also went back to the source. Not sure about the legality of that either.
But then, how does BuzzFeed get away w/ all the pics they post? Do they really track down permissions for ALL those photos they include in their lists?? I doubt it. Again – maybe another lawsuit waiting to happen?
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Hi Jackie –
You are safe on Pinterest if you pin a photo you find ON Pinterest. Where it get’s dangerous is if you take a photo OFF of Pinterest and use it for your blog or social media. I am not totally sure about photos pinned from a website to Pinterest but I think you are safe if a) they have a “Pin It” button on their site (they are asking you to pin there images) and b) because when you pin from a website, a link to that website is automatically crated with that pin (gives credit). However, it really comes down to what type of photo you are pinning and a risk analysis. I would not pin anything from a photographer’s website without their permission because some of them don’t like their images pinned (to easy to steal that way).
YouTube is a third-party application so, according to the lawyer I talked to, there is no problem with embedding those on your blog. As you said, it always takes you back to YouTube and the original source.
I am not familiar with BuzzFeed so I can’t say for sure. Sadly, a lot of this comes down to risk analysis – who has more money for lawyers? The one thing I do know is: Not Me! 🙂
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Thanks – that’s good to know about YouTube.
I never take stuff from Pinterest for my blog. But I have pulled pics from the web to use on my boards. I have one board that’s for my novel (I know tons of authors who have done the same) with pics of the celebs I pictured as the main characters. I figured, celebs are used to getting their photos out there…so… hopefully I’m okay with those. (Or maybe I should go and delete that board!).
Jessica/YDWWYW/PetTalkMedia said:
Hi Jackie –
You are safe on Pinterest if you pin a photo you find ON Pinterest. Where it get’s dangerous is if you take a photo OFF of Pinterest and use it for your blog or social media. I am not totally sure about photos pinned from a website to Pinterest but I think you are safe if a) they have a “Pin It” button on their site (they are asking you to pin there images) and b) because when you pin from a website, a link to that website is automatically crated with that pin (gives credit). However, it really comes down to what type of photo you are pinning and a risk analysis. I would not pin anything from a photographer’s website without their permission because some of them don’t like their images pinned (to easy to steal that way).
YouTube is a third-party application so, according to the lawyer I talked to, there is no problem with embedding those on your blog. As you said, it always takes you back to YouTube and the original source.
I am not familiar with BuzzFeed so I can’t say for sure. Sadly, a lot of this comes down to risk analysis – who has more money for lawyers? The one thing I do know is: Not Me! 🙂
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If you are pinning images from a site that has a “pin it” button I would say you are okay because the site owner is encouraging you to pin it.
But if an image is copyright protected, you would be in violation if you don’t have permission to pin it regardless of the fact that it links back. Copyright isn’t as much about proper credit, as it is about permission. There were a lot of professional photographers who got up in arms when Pinterest became popular because there images were being shared and users were changing the urls to the image or downloading them to their own computer and uploading them. Just because a pin has been repinned umpteen times doesn’t mean it’s not protected.
Here’s a good article on Pinterest and copyright and on using photos in general- http://www.dmlp.org/blog/2012/pinterest-fair-use-images-building-communities-fan-pages-copyright . Pinterest puts all the onus of making sure a pin doesn’t infringe on someone’s copyright on us, the users. I still enjoy using it, but I click through and check out the site attached to the pin before repinning.
Here’s another image source for you. I found out about an image site called morgueFiles where the images are free and they even allow adaptation of the image. It looks pretty good and I’m going to add it to my resources.
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Hmmm. Maybe I should just delete that board. I don’t feel like going back through all the pics/pages to see if they had a “pin it” button. Thanks.
Dawn Miklich said:
If you are pinning images from a site that has a “pin it” button I would say you are okay because the site owner is encouraging you to pin it.
But if an image is copyright protected, you would be in violation if you don’t have permission to pin it regardless of the fact that it links back. Copyright isn’t as much about proper credit, as it is about permission. There were a lot of professional photographers who got up in arms when Pinterest became popular because there images were being shared and users were changing the urls to the image or downloading them to their own computer and uploading them. Just because a pin has been repinned umpteen times doesn’t mean it’s not protected.
Here’s a good article on Pinterest and copyright and on using photos in general- http://www.dmlp.org/blog/2012/pinterest-fair-use-images-building-co… . Pinterest puts all the onus of making sure a pin doesn’t infringe on someone’s copyright on us, the users. I still enjoy using it, but I click through and check out the site attached to the pin before repinning.
Here’s another image source for you. I found out about an image site called morgueFiles where the images are free and they even allow adaptation of the image. It looks pretty good and I’m going to add it to my resources.
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No Buzz Feed does not ask permission before posting. I know that for a fact only because all of a sudden I was getting a spike in traffic took a look in my dashboard and found it was coming from BuzzFeed. They don’t ask permission but do link back and the traffic they send is nice enough that I doubt anyone would complain.
Huffington Post does ask permission to use your photo in their photo galleries they include with posts.
Jackie Bouchard said:
I read that blogher post a while back and it scared me away from Pinterest and since then I only use my own photos on both my blog/Pinterest. I sometimes also use flickr for my blog. I haven’t gone back and taken down the few photos I ‘stole’ from elsewhere in the past on my blog. (They are few and far between, as most of the pics are just my own dogs, but I wonder if I should take them down…) The blogher story made me want to delete my Pinterest boards but I left them up, and now only add my own pics. Pinterest seems like a lotta lawsuits waitin’ to happen….
The one thing I still do that I’m not sure about is posting videos on my blog from YouTube – they will take a viewer back to the source on YouTube, so not sure what the legality is there… Maybe I should stop doing that? And I did post a couple of gifs the other day on my blog – that also went back to the source. Not sure about the legality of that either.
But then, how does BuzzFeed get away w/ all the pics they post? Do they really track down permissions for ALL those photos they include in their lists?? I doubt it. Again – maybe another lawsuit waiting to happen?
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Pinterest – If someone has the Pin It Button on their site you have their permission to Pin the image as it appears directly onto Pinterest. That means you must pin directly from their site where the picture appears in the post so that it links back to their Blog Post. What you cannot do is find an image using Google Image and pin from there you must pin from the original source.
Example of an original source: http://twolittlecavaliers.com/2013/05/asparagus-and-salmon-sushi-salad-with-orange-vinaigrette.html
Anyone who doesn’t want their video to be made public is welcome to put it up so that only their friends and family can view the video. If they want it public but do not want people to be able to embed it they can turn off that function. If they do not turn off the function and you simply embed the video using youtube’s sharing features you are in compliance with their rules and regulations. If on the other hand you grab the video and upload it to your own channel you can be sued.
Jessica/YDWWYW/PetTalkMedia said:
Hi Jackie –
You are safe on Pinterest if you pin a photo you find ON Pinterest. Where it get’s dangerous is if you take a photo OFF of Pinterest and use it for your blog or social media. I am not totally sure about photos pinned from a website to Pinterest but I think you are safe if a) they have a “Pin It” button on their site (they are asking you to pin there images) and b) because when you pin from a website, a link to that website is automatically crated with that pin (gives credit). However, it really comes down to what type of photo you are pinning and a risk analysis. I would not pin anything from a photographer’s website without their permission because some of them don’t like their images pinned (to easy to steal that way).
YouTube is a third-party application so, according to the lawyer I talked to, there is no problem with embedding those on your blog. As you said, it always takes you back to YouTube and the original source.
I am not familiar with BuzzFeed so I can’t say for sure. Sadly, a lot of this comes down to risk analysis – who has more money for lawyers? The one thing I do know is: Not Me! 🙂
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An FYI do not take people’s recipe photos and post them on Facebook with the entire recipe. You will get in trouble by the author of the recipe. What you can do and most Bloggers are ok with it is you can use a small version of their picture with the original watermark intact (meaning don’t cut out their blog address on the picture) say something like this looks like an amazing recipe or I made this last night and it turned out incredible then link to the actual blog post so that people have to click through in order to be able to make the dish. Do not share it on your page with the entire recipe and instructions on how to make it so that people never have to visit the original blog. Just think about all those potential visitors the creator of that recipe is missing out on because people don’t need to visit their blog.
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