Many photos are accompanied by the text ‘All rights reserved’ and the symbol ©. All rights reserved: Pay up or get permission So, free is not the same as free of rights.Ĭopyright can best be classified in two categories: By default, distribution of a photographer’s images is not permitted unless the creator grants explicit permission. Copyright law states that all rights are reserved automatically. And did you think that free photos are always free of rights? Think again. For example, a photo is often accompanied by the text ‘All rights reserved’ and the familiar copyright symbol ©, but the six different types of Creative Commons licenses are also becoming more prevalent in the context of ‘Some rights reserved’. Copyright protects the creator, to prevent their work being shared with the rest of the world without permission. The photographer has exclusive rights and is allowed to set conditions with regards to what interested parties may or may not do with their image. How can you quickly determine the source of a photo? Using Google Images you can search for the source, you can upload a photo yourself and trace it back as a test case, or you could use TinEye to track down the source.Ĭopyright is the right of a photographer to publish and distribute his or her work. Often the photographer requires you to ask permission or to pay for using their photo. However, chances are you just took a copyrighted photo which you don’t have permission to share. You quickly grabbed a pic from the web to complete your article, whitepaper, ebook or story: it’s so easy. Just because you can find a picture using Google does not automatically mean you’re free to use it in your publication. But how do you find suitable images that you’re in fact allowed to use? Not everyone is aware of copyright issues relating to the use of images.

Roughly 70% of the content in online publications using our software consists of GIFs, pictures and videos. Images are super important when getting started with your online publication.

Photo websites like flickr