Chris asked me a great question:
What’s a good policy on using photos from other sources when you blog? Can you use other sources as long as you credit them?
I am no expert on copyright, so what follows is mostly ‘common sense’ advice. What happens if you find an amazing picture on a site that would be perfect for your post? Do you use it?
My advice is you should use the picture ONLY if you can find on the site where the owner has given you express permission to use their pictures. If they don’t list this somewhere on their blog, look on their About page, or they may have a Creative Commons logo that will tell you if you can use the content on that site.
So if you can’t tell if it’s ok, assume it is not. And if you DO use a picture, always make sure you include a link back to the source. Even if the person doesn’t ask for this (they should).
Now, what’s the best source of pictures you can use on your blog?
My favorite is Flickr. Flickr has hundreds of millions of amazing photos posted by its users. When the user uploads the photos, they set whether or not everyone else can use their photos, and under what license. Not everyone will give you permission to use their photos, but when you are talking about hundreds of millions of photos, the odds are you can find something that will work for you.
Each picture you find will list on the bottom right of the screen either ‘All Rights Reserved’ or ‘Some Rights Reserved’. If it says ‘All Rights Reserved’, then you can’t use it unless the owner gives you explicit permission. If the photo says ‘Some rights reserved’, then you can use it, but under the terms of its license. You can click where it says Some rights reserved to learn exactly what those terms are.
Here is an explanation of the different types of Creative Common licenses:
Attribution: This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.
Attribution – ShareAlike: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.
Attribution – NoDerivs: This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.
Attribution – NonCommerical: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
Attribution – NonCommercial – ShareAlike: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
Attribution – NonCommercial-NoDerivs: This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
So how do you attribute works on Flickr?
The photo above came from Flickr, from a user that licensed the photo via the Attribution license. That means I am free to use the photo, and could have also adapted it if I wanted to. For example, if I want to later use it in a slidedeck, I could, as long as I added attribution.
How I attribute photos from Flickr is via this method. I add the following at the end of the post ‘Pic via Flickr User (User’s name)’. I then add two links to this, where ‘Flickr User’ is, I add a link to the CC license that covers the picture. Where the user’s name is, I add a link to that user’s Flickr photostream. Now you can do this, or link to the picture itself. And for some pictures, the user will specify exactly what link they want you to use, and in that case you should if you use their photo.
So that’s where I go for amazing photos, what sources do you use?
Pic via Flickr user Life House Design
I think I shared this on #blogchat one night – I’m in love with Wylio.com. Their site has photos ready to be used – search, click, and it lets you size the photo and get the code to embed with attribution. If you see anything on my site without credit, it’s mine – otherwise, I’ve pulled it from the Wylio site.
Thanks for posting this. I’m a newbie and I just started using photos from Flickr in my blog. I was totally confused about the creative commons license stuff.
This post is an excellent resource, Mack – I hope many people read it. For over a decade, I owned a company that produced commercial photography. One of the most prevalent issues I encountered was the misunderstanding around copyright and intellectual property rights of images.
I like to think that most people are quite honest and don’t intend to infringe upon copyrights. But, given the litigious potential when one does infringe, ignorance is dangerous. As you point out, if you didn’t shoot it, draw it, or write it – get permission.
This is superb info – thank you
Hey Tobey! I think this is a big issue for new bloggers, who honestly probably think it’s just fine to use whatever pictures they want, in many cases. You have to do some research to learn what is and is not acceptable use, but it’s worth it. Bloggers don’t want to see someone use their posts without their permission, and it’s the same thing with pictures.
I have to agree with Rick that Wylio.com is terrific – it lets you search just the creative commons photos on Flickr, lets you resize and position the picture, then automatically generates the HTML you need. Really easy. And if you don’t mind paying a couple bucks to use a photo, iStockPhoto is a great source. I use both — searching Wylio first, then iStockPhoto.
Flickr and Wylio are great sources of photos. Well, the web is a great source of images whether free to use or not. And regardless if it’s free, credit should be given to where it is due.
I use Flickr too, probably ’cause I am too lazy to look elsewhere haha.
I use this base search, adding the keywords I am looking for in the text field.
Then I attribute linking at the end of the post the user’s name to his Flickr stream. I used to comment on Flickr as well mentioning I used the pic in one of my posts, but since you can’t link to the post itself, there’s not much point and I figured a simple mention would be enough.
Gabriele that is a good Flickr search, I also use this one, which searches via license: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
I’ve always used Flick for Creative Commons photos. Since Getty became involved with Flickr I have tread carefully around the images I use on the basis that what may be CC today may not be sometime in the future, and Getty has been known to chase down bloggers and website owners for using images they shouldn’t. This may be unfounded but I wouldn’t like to be the test case! Most of the time I now use screengrabs or iStockPhoto.
This is very helpful. I was actually wondering this earlier in the week. Appreciate the post and the information!
Thanks for the info, Mack. I’ll definitely be bookmarking this!
Very helpful discussion here. I am also using other photos and I search it using google image search. Everytime I post a photo in my content I usually put some captions crediting them but I know ’twas not enough.
Thank you I now know where to get photos to carry on having seo and smo for my blogs.
Really helpful thank you.
thanks information!
Mark
Great Post! This is really an important topic.
There is a way you can search Flickr for keywords and filter the results to only those that have the right licences, saving you a lot of time.
Try either http://compfight.com/ or http://www.behold.cc/ – they both do a great job of this.
Thank you for that information. What if the boots on the other foot though? Someone has e mailed me to ask if they can use a flickr photo of mine on a cover of a university publication. Its in S Africa . I checked all the names and they are who they say they are. They sent me a PDF of the publication. Do I charge them? If so how much? My first instinct was just to be flattered and say go ahead, but is that foolish?
Has anyone any advice.
Sorry to hi- jack your post as a forum. Please feel free to delete this . I don’t know who else to ask!
Jackie that’s a great question, and honestly it’s completely up to you if you want to charge for your photograph. Personally, I would want to charge if someone is wanting to use one of my photos to help them make money. But in this case, *I* would probably be more willing to work with a university.
Still, it’s completely up to you. One thing to consider is that if your photograph is used by the university, and they mention it as being yours, that would be additional exposure for you. So if you want to become better known for your photography, this would only help.
My guess, and it’s just that, is that the university can’t/won’t pay for a picture, and if you insist on payment, they will just go back to Flickr and find another they like and contact that person.
As for what you should charge, I wouldn’t even know what to ask, maybe someone else here can help with that? Let us know what you decide, and update us on what happens!
Mark Thank you for your swift reply. It makes good sense and I agree.
My first thought was to say ‘yes you can have’ it as its quite flattering to be asked. I just thought I’d see what anyone else thought.
With me it isn’t about the photography, its a piece of my own textile art that I took a photograph of. I suppose its bright and faintly African looking!
Thank you for you help.
I think it also rather depends on the subject of the photo, for instance if you someone has taken a photo of some celeb, then I’d think it would be fair to assume they are not going to want you to use their photo without express permission.
On the other hand if you have say a gadget blog, I doubt you are going to get much grief if you use some of the manufacturers pictures as you are effectively promoting their product.
I could NOT have found this at a better time. There is a situation that has ensued in regards to a friend. My friend knows someone who for I don’t know how long and their former friend is using photos of some Man who is or was into body building. Now in most of his photos you can obviously tell that he has edited them. And the friend(the innocent one) has found most of this person’s photos on line(of the bodybuilder) by searching the name of the real person behind these photos. Yet the person using the photos(the pretender)under a different name I cannot say… WHOM has no rights to them claims they are of themselve’s. My friend has tried on numerous occasions to get the person to confess but the person without rights to the photos will fight tooth and nail to no end to continue to portray the person in these images. Now my question is: Who is in the right? My friend trying to get the truth out? Or the the person using photos that they have no rights to?
As a pro photographer I’m mainly interested in honesty. If I know someone wants to use one of my photos I want to know about it. Atleast then I have the option of either charging for it or not, depending on the situation and the person asking.
Honesty and integrity should come first.
Very informative post. I’m not a fan of reading the fine print and this post made it very simple for me to understand. Thanks again!
Well it looks like I’m actually about two years too late replying to this post but I was making some web searches because I’m currently writing a post on the same topic and I just wanted to see what was out there.
Unfortunately as photographers many of us have hostile feelings on this topic but I want to try to keep my own post from being completely belligerent. As someone who works in corporate photography many of my photos are locked down. Even then I often find them floating around the web. Personally I don’t get completely worked up unless they are used for profit, claimed by someone else or things along that nature. Frankly I just don’t have time to track down everyone that decides to use one of my photos. Not that it makes it right to just means I don’t have time to track everyone now.
Thank you for the post and I thank you for the information.
Have a wonderful day,
Barry
Thanks so much for this post. It is not easy to figure out the copyright laws for images. Giving a specific example and discussing it is most helpful!