We all use images online everyday, either we tweet, publish a facebook or a blog post. The phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” is now extended to “…and a thousand retweet/shares” as pictures play a major role in the virality of a message.

But is it ok to simply use the images we find online?

What Is Copyright?

Copyright is a federal law that protects original works of authorship, meaning pretty much anything you create, a poem, a musical piece, a painting etc. It begins to exist at the time of creation and there is no requirement to use the “©” icon for copyright to incur. The creator doesn’t have to register his/her work legally in order to get this kind of protection, copyright is born automatically the moment a project is created.

So in a nutshell, when it comes to copyrighted work you can’t reproduce it, display it publicly, make and/or distribute copies without the creator’s permission.

Copyright laws sound pretty strict, how people get to share all those pictures online? Lets talk about Fair use…

What is Fair Use?

Fair use is the legal construct that allows millions of people every day to see and share images online. Fair Use is a balancing between protecting the creator and promoting the interests of the public as it exists for the greater good, to allow copyrighted works to be used without permission. To understand where Fair use is applicable just imagine not being able to use images of Nelson Mandela to tell the story of his life. Still, you can’t just use any image you find on Google and call it “Fair use”.

Oh come on, I am just a blogger can I use images for free?

If you want to be 100% legal, then no. You can’t just download an image and use it in your blog exactly because it’s not yours to use.

Free image resources

What you can do is use public domain pictures. There are websites where people upload beautiful images they are willing to give to the world for free, no questions asked.

Here are 20 places you can get beauuuutiful public domain images (always check the terms of the site just to be sure, attribution may be required):

1. Unsplash
2. Gratisography
3. New Old Stock
4. Picjumbo
5. Little Visuals
6. Getrefe
7. Death to the Stock Photo
8. SplitShire
9. Foter
10. Stockvault
11. Freepik
12. Lifeofpix
13. Imcreator
14. Snapwiresnaps
15. Unrestrictedstock
16. Pixabay
17. Publicdomainarchive
18. Morguefile
19. Public Domain Pictures
20. The Pattern Library

Ask for permission

You just finished writting a blog post and found the perfect picture for it in another site. What you can do is contact that site owner and ask for permission to use his/her picture in your blog. You can add the site’s link on that image and refer back to the original site. I know googling and downloading is easy. Still, asking for image use permission is one of my personal favorites as it’s a beautiful way to meet interesting bloggers and expand your network.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, all the information in this post is a product of online research (Commonly known as “googling”). Sources: socialmediaexaminer.com | stockphotorights.com |lifehacker.com