I appreciate the heads up also and will continue to ask before posting links to art or other property. But what about photobucket or google images? I know many people just assume (I had before) that it's fine if it's a still of a celebrity or other public figure. This is something I had just never given much thought to so I'm glad for the info.
Tyler,
There are images and sites that have "royalty free" images see
this site. And in general.. you can get great images for websites relatively cheap from istock, getty etc..
There are also old images in the library of congress that are either free, or have a small restriction or two.
However, if you pull an image off of any site on google.. say you go to my site and pull off an image, and I had paid for some stock art.. I have permission to use it not you, I paid for use of that image, you didn't. AND even though I paid for use of that image... in many cases I don't own that image. Most artists keep copyright over their images.
So the Getty people might be trolling through the Internets looking for images and run into your site and see that you are using said image. BAM copyright fine.. UGLY...
Rule of thumb.. don't use it if you don't know where it comes from.
If you run into a persons site with an amazing fabulous image.. send them an email and ask.
Also, because the economy is soo bad, larger companies will be looking for ways to make money, and what better way then praying off of other people's ignorance.
I just got a client because he went with a "
web-professional" (and i use that term lightly) who stole images off the internet. A few years later, he gets a note in the mail from a lawyer working with Getty!!!! He was very lucky that they didn't prosecute him, rather they asked that he take the images down. Which we did. What the
"web-professional" doesn't understand is that she can be held accountable for putting those images up on his site.
When I work on a site that require stock-art I keep that in a separate file, in case I get a letter from istock or whomever.
The copyright laws are meant to protect artist and creators, they have been pushed to absurdity due to Disney, or any other company that makes money from characters and artwork. I use to be, that if the art was 70 years old and beyond you could use it free. But Disney changed that maybe 10 years ago(?) since Mickey was climbing up in years.. I think (don't quote me) art goes in the public domain if it is 120 years old.
So.. short and sweet.. if you didn't pay for the rights to use it (and rights will vary depending on how much you pay, and how you want to use the artwork), and the image isn't 120 years old, and you didn't get it off a royalty free site or one of those clip art cd's (and even these you need to review the license) ... Don't use it!!!!
There are alot of artists on Deviant Art who make stuff and give it away for free, they just ask you to either link back to them, or tell them how you use it, or if you could give them a small donation.
hk