Oh Google Images, you make it so easy, in fact, you make it too easy for some of us.
Earlier this month Webcopyplus, came forward with a very painful, to the tune of $4000, lesson they learned about pilfering images. Read more about that here.
While they and my fellow designers should know better, I realize that not everyone out there understands that just because you can find it online, doesn’t mean it’s yours to use. Google Images is simply an index of images on the web, a search tool. You can find all sorts of lovely intellectual property just seemingly laid out to take and use at will, but you better do your research first. Most of those images are not free to be used in the public domain.
So let’s say you are a brand new startup and you want to build a swanky new website and print up some really groovy print materials for potential investors to peruse at their leisure, where do you find your images and how do you know if you can legally use them?
What you need are royalty-free stock photos and illustrations. A quick search will bring you a treasure trove to choose from, istock, fotolia and bigstockphoto just to name a few. They even have dollar bins for those of us that like to be thrifty.
Maybe as a new startup money is especially tight and even those dollar bin photos are a bit of an expenditure. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered! You can find free and legal images though many sites. Stock.xchng, EveryStockPhoto and FreeFoto are all popular sites.
Just keep it legit or you too could be shelling out 4K for a 10 buck image.
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