What's the proper way to use free images and videos on your blog?

[cristinabarkerjones]

How do you find free images/videos for your blogs and how do you give credit to the owner of the image/video? What are the best websites for free images and videos you know? Should you always post the source of the visuals and should you do it under each image/video or you can do it at the end of the blog post?

 

[fisicx]

Search for 'royalty free images' and you will get a whole load of site offering free images. They will all have their own publication criteria and some will require accreditation (usually a caption under the image).

As to sources of images, a lot of the images on royalty free sites are pretty naff. I prefer to pay a few pounds and use an image library - you get a much better choice.

Videos are easy, just use the sharing/embed code from youtube or vimeo.

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

Videos are easy, just use the sharing/embed code from youtube or vimeo.

If I embed a video directly from youtube, should I give any credit to the owner of the video?

 

[Deleted member 59730]

Royalty Free does not mean FREE! It means that you do not have to continue paying a royalty after purchasing a licence.

If you hunt around for free images you will find thousands which have been stolen. If the rightful owner finds you using their image you could be in for a surprise. One image thief scanned one of my photos and put it on his Flickr page as a CC licence. A magazine and a government department both used the image on their website. I ended up £1200 and £1500 richer when I took action against them.

To be safe always ask permission from the person you know to be the copyright owner.

 

[UKSBD]

If I embed a video directly from youtube, should I give any credit to the owner of the video?

As I would think a large number of videos you see on YouTube are uploaded by people who technically don't have permission to do so, you need to be careful.

 

[fisicx]

Royalty Free does not mean FREE! It means that you do not have to continue paying a royalty after purchasing a licence.

Agree, should have made that clearer. There are almost no free images anywhere - anything you can use legally will have a cost or some sort of link back to the owner.

If you want a free image, get out the kodak and take your own.

And as suggested, don't use a yourtube video that has a hint of belonging to someone else.

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

To be safe always ask permission from the person you know to be the copyright owner.

How can I find the copyright owner, if there are so many frauds (like the one on Flickr)? And one more question. How did you find that your image was stolen and used by a magazine and a government department?

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

And what about sites like Aliexpress where there are hundreds upon hundreds pages with the same product using the same images? Do you think, if somebody uses one of these images on his website, Aliexpress could sue him? And how do you find the owner of such images that have been used on multiple different pages and websites?

 

[Deleted member 59730]

How can I find the copyright owner, if there are so many frauds (like the one on Flickr)? And one more question. How did you find that your image was stolen and used by a magazine and a government department?

Dear Christina

Google have a reverse image search. Open up Google images and then drag and drop a small jpeg image into the box. Voila! Using it I can turn wet Sunday afternoons into cash.

It is also a way to find rightful owners.

There are also many other tools like Tineye and ImageRaider.

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

Google have a reverse image search

I know about Google's reverse image search but sometimes people flip horizontally the image and Google can't find it... I will try the other two tools you have mentioned.

 

[Ian Mcgregor]

There is an option in Google Image Search --> Search Tools --> Usage Rights --> Labeled for reuse but I'm not 100% sure, if all the results can be used for free. Maybe someone here knows more about this option...

 

[fisicx]

I know about Google's reverse image search but sometimes people flip horizontally the image and Google can't find it... I will try the other two tools you have mentioned.

This is why free images are always fraught with danger. If you pay for your images you get the license to go with them. Far safer and less likely to get you into trouble.

 

[obscure]

1. There are lots of stolen images on the net. Using one on a business blog is a good way to end up getting sued for copyright infringement.
2. Trying to find the copyright owner of a stolen image you like is really hard and probably not worth the effort given how quick and cheap it is to license legal images.
3. There are lots of sites that offer free and paid image licensing. However, in 99.999% of cases the free images can only be used for non-commercial purposes.
4. There are loads of microstock sites that license images for business use for just a few dollars/pounds. While the images probably aren't going to win any art awards they have a huge selection so you will almost certainly be able to find one that fits your needs and you won't get sued.

 

[LowPrices.uk]

Just get a smartphone with a good camera, and start taking a lot of photos. You will soon have your own bank of nice photos that you can use to illustrate your blog posts, and they will probably look much better too.

 

[UKSBD]

4. There are loads of microstock sites that license images for business use for just a few dollars/pounds. While the images probably aren't going to win any art awards they have a huge selection so you will almost certainly be able to find one that fits your needs and you won't get sued.

The problem is they tend to have something in their terms that say;

"We hope the image you download from us is OK to use, but if it isn't and someone sues you, that's your problem not ours"

Or words to that effect.

 

[LowPrices.uk]

Yes, much easier just to take your own photos. I mean, it's not hard when you have a smartphone, is it?

 

[epat]

How do you find free images/videos for your blogs and how do you give credit to the owner of the image/video? What are the best websites for free images and videos you know? Should you always post the source of the visuals and should you do it under each image/video or you can do it at the end of the blog post?

Define free image/video?

 

[Riiser]

Hi Christina

This is a site I use now and again for pictures that are free of all Attribution.

morguefile(dot)com

 

[Barnes Thomas]

I used Image Raider for my blog and it was helpful. Really

 

[Deleted member 59730]

Hi there, we should always give credit where the credit is due. You should either insert an internal link/hyperlink of the image or video source or simply acknowledge the source.

It is not actually an either/or situation. The IPEC court will increase damages if there is metadata removed or missing from the file and they will increase damages if there is a confusion over an acknowledgement.

So, if your blog has "copyright Your Name" at the bottom of the page and you haven't named the photographer expect bigger costs.

 

[HazelC]

https://pixabay.com/ and another good site is http://www.picmonkey.com/ where you can edit your photos, add text/quotes etc. which is also free.

 

[Ian Mcgregor]

I also use pixabay to search for high quality free images.