Hi,

It occurred to me a few days ago that the images I took off google might be copyrighted.

I have recently made an image gallery page on my site, and collected some good pictures off google. But do you think that these pictures are copyrighted and shouldn't be used on my site?

Also, I took a few images and editted them to make banners...

I'm just wondering if what i'm doing is alright.

Thanks,
Gig

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Halo 3 Central - The Ultimate Halo 3 Video and Guides Database.

If you play Starcraft on iccup, then add me ViRGiNsOnLY

Sounds like you have already put some time and effort into this, but better to think about this now than later. Especially since you could potentially get into serious trouble.

Google is a search tool. It uses thumbnails to point to pictures on the web when you look for images, just as it points to text in a standard search. The images have the protection that each site owner gives them.

If you take your own picture, put it on your site and say, "Here, this is free for anyone to use as they wish," then it is up for grabs. If you say, "Here, anyone who pays me $1,000 may use this picture once on one page of a site," then those are the terms.

I sure hope you don't get any large bills! But don't be fooled. You could.

In practice, the whole subject is so confusing and so often abused that a lot of people ignore the rules. But as you may recall, a lot of people who downloaded music in the past didn't get caught—for a long while. But when a few artists and recording studios decided to go after them a few got whopping bills (from lawsuits) in the thousands.

Personally I wouldn't take the chance myself. I like to get a sound night's sleep.

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Good Success!

Douglas County Master Gardeners
"We don't always get what we want, but we always get what we expect."

oh man that's just what i was afraid of...

I guess I should just delete the whole images section?

But what about the banners? I took a fwe images off the internet and editted them to make small banners for my pages...wouldn't want to take those off.

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Halo 3 Central - The Ultimate Halo 3 Video and Guides Database.

If you play Starcraft on iccup, then add me ViRGiNsOnLY

Probably the most important question is exactly where you got the ones you would like to keep for the banners, etc. Since you are talking about only a few, try to figure out where you got them. A lot of images, such as those that come with MS Office components, are ok to use anyway, or you may be able to get permission depending on how you use them.

One of the biggest issues today relates to people in the pictures. Even if you have rights to the picture you have to have "model" releases for anyone in them.

On our Master Gardener site we cannot even post pictures taken at public events like our garden tours with people in them unless we have releases. The concern is that if we should show the picture of someone, say a woman being stalked by some creep, and he finds her because of our disclosure we could be sued. That is the crazy world we live in. Makes it challenging doesn't it.

Don't know if our requirements are due to a state law or just a University of Minnesota rule, although the potential for a lawsuit would be a consideration either way.

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Good Success!

Douglas County Master Gardeners
"We don't always get what we want, but we always get what we expect."

NO, No and No!

This is one area, where newbies get in the most trouble.

I probably download 25/50 images per week, but not any off of Google. If you noticed the fine print when you click on Google Images, you will note some text that says that the images be be subject to copyright...It is then your responsibility to go to the respective site and see if the image is indeed copyrighted...

Even if an image is in the public domain, but is installed on someones site, then it is automatically copyrighted by that persons website. Besides that, the image may be also copyrighted by a company, a book dealer, publisher or a photographer. And just because someone has an image on their site, doesn't necessarily mean they put on their site legally.

And just because you have taken a copyrighted image and edited it to your liking, doesn't release you from copyright infringement.

James is right on about recognizable faces, logos, signs, etc. Logo's and signs are copyrighted...Peoples faces, unless you have a model release, opens you up to infringement.

For an example, last year I took some photos of an hot air balloons which I wanted to sell on a photo site. Low and behold one of the images had a logo on it and I was advised that it could not be published...the way around this was to blur the logo, but it was MY image, not someone else's, which may still have gotten me in trouble.

If you tell me what type or kind of image(s) you need, I will turn you on to some of my Public Domain sources.

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SgtMac66

Macs RevWar

There are actually sites out the that you can subscribe to that have images you can use with all the rights to them so you don't have to worry about it. Just a matter of searching for them. I actually found a while ago it is much easier liability wise if you pay for a service. One it usually has better images. and two if there is a issue with the image it falls on their hands as you are a customer.

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