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Using photos and images in your articles and blogs can really enhance the look. But using photos other than your own can get you into legal trouble and knowing which photos you can use and how to use them properly is very important.
This article is to the best of my knowledge after reading legal opinions, instructions and Webmaster blogs. The use of photographs is a confusing issue, and you could get into trouble using someone else’s photos without the proper attribution or credit back to the owner of the photo. You have to pay attention to the license and copyright of the photograph.
All Rights Reserved
There is what is called a Creative Commons license and you will see this all of the time when searching for photographs and images. Creative Commons is a way for someone to keep their copyright but also add some flexibility to the copyright license and how the image can be used. When you see “All Rights Reserved”, that means you cannot use it. If you really love the image and want to use it, you have to write the copyright owner and ask for and get permission to use it. If you get permission you also give them credit with the photo.
Creative Commons
There are different types of the Creative Commons licenses that let you know how you can use the photo or image. Pay close attention to the differences when looking for and using a photo or image for your blogs and articles. Pay attention to the symbols and words of the creative commons license. The different Creative Commons licenses that you will be interested in are:
Non-Commercial (NC), you cannot use a photo or image that has this in the license since your articles on Factoidz are considered commercial. If your blogs have any ads on them like Google Adsense or Amazon for example, that is also considered commercial.
Attribution (BY) is what you will see most often. What this means is that you have to give attribution back to the owner of the photo and the license.
Attribution No Derivatives (ND) means you can use it but you cannot change the photo or image in any way. This can present a problem on articles and blogs since most of the time we need to resize the photo, and this license pretty much means no changing.
Attribution Share Alike (SA) means that you can change the original work as long as it is kept under the same license and you attribute back to the owner of the photo. These would be the best to use for articles and blogs since you can resize them.
You would see a combination of symbols for a license like BY SA for Attribution and Share alike.
How To Find Creative Commons Photos on Flickr
Flickr has many photos, but you have to search properly. On Flickr, type in your search word, Flickr will then show the pictures matching your search. Near the search box, click on “Advanced Search”, here is the important part:
Scroll down to CC Creative Commons.
Check the box that says, “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content”
Check the box below that that says, “Find content to use commercially”
To search only for photos and images that you can change and resize, check the third box, “Find content to modify, adapt, build upon”.
Then click Search.
Once you find a picture you like, click on the picture, look on the right hand side and scroll down until you see the copyright notice under Additional Information. Most of these will say, “Some rights reserved”. Click on “some rights reserved” so you can see the actual license information. Most of them in the Creative Commons commercial area will say you are free to use the photo as long as you attribute the work back to the owner of the photo and possibly some of the above-mentioned restrictions. You can also search on Flickr by the Creative Commons license type.
What you want to see is a CC license that says; you are free to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work. To remix – to adapt the work, under the following conditions, that you attribute the work in the manner specified.
How to Attribute a Photo
There are no definitive answers and several options. The best way is to link back to the license and the photo or the copyright owners page where you got the photo. In the below photo, I have a link for the CC or Creative Commons license, that link will take anyone to the actual CC license for that photo. And the second link is back to the original photo and owner; make sure you put the copyright holders name under the picture.
South Pacific rainbow. Photo by Rhett Maxwell
Public Domain Photographs and Images
On Wikimedia Commons, if you look hard enough you can find plenty of public domain photos to use. Do not assume that all photos and images on Wikipedia or Wikimedia are in the public domain, because they are not. Most are licensed with some form of copyright license like Creative Commons.
When you find a picture that is public domain, it will say the following, “I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the Public Domain.” Or "This image has been released into the public domain by its author" or something similar. You can use those photos and images without having to attribute it or link to any source.
Photos by the US government are usually public domain; just make sure and read the copyright statement.
Places to Find Public Domain Photos
Morguefile, is a good photo site and at the bottom of their home web page is a nice list of free photo sites. Just always read the terms of service for each of these sites. I have found that just because they say free doesn’t mean you can use them for commercial uses.
US Federal Government public domain images, is a huge collection of photos.
Final Notes
Avoid using pictures with trademarks in them. And be careful when using a photo that has a persons picture in it. If you use a photo that has a person in it, use it in good taste or avoid using it. There are laws about personal privacy. If anyone knows of something that is wrong with this information, please let me know. For a more complete description of finding Creative Common photos on Flickr, read the article How To Find Free Photographs on Flickr. For a more complete article on the Creative Commons license, see the article The Creative Commons License and the Freelance Writer/Photographer.
Sources
Brad Templeton Copyright Myths Explained
There is a lot I probably don’t understand. But this somewhat seems to water down or invalidate the copyright or creative commons license. I just assumed someone could only copyright their own work and obviously these people didn’t take the Hubble pictures. There sure are a lot of beautiful photographs on Flickr, some amazing photos actually.
Copyright and Intellectual property is such a confusing and complicated area. Thanks Sam for shedding light on this area. Great job!
this good thing that photo was giving confusion and i also agree with this statement
Nice tips actually, I usually take photos from Flickr where I run an advance search to choose photos that have least restrictions on them.
I like and prefer erring on the side of caution and either use the 'share alike' so that I can zoom-in and crop or photo-edit a section for an effect, use for commercial (make $) and still give credit to the image author.
Excellent
I am very new to this activity--writing activity. I do not understand fully words like SEO, backlinks, etc. that would help me in marketing my articles. Actually, my intention is just to write without thinking of how it will yield earnings for me. I am not saying, however, that I don't want to earn out of it. What I am trying to emphasize is that I am a little bit confused on so many things that have to be considered in order to earn. Just by reading articles like yours on the matter only helps me a little, but I am still thankful to have read your articles although there are points that I haven't internalized fully. Besides, this is my first time to be connected to the net and I am really inspired by what I have observed regarding various blogs of writers of all sorts. Having realized this, I also want to find myself in this field. I may not have the skills of a professional journalist because I have no formal schooling on this course, but I have the passion and the ability to write banking primarily on my English skills. I am a Filipino and I want to maintain the title given to us as the third English-speaking people in the world behind the Americans and the Englishmen. I believe that I have plenty of ideas to write about and in due time when I have already learned the mechanics of this trade, maybe I can already consider myself at par with the other successful writers like you. For the meantime, I continue reading articles relevant to writing. Thank you and more power.
Hi Wenefredo, there are quite a few writers on here from the Philippines. You can use the search here on Factoidz and search Philippines and find them. I wrote another article that could help you understand more about SEO and writing articles. It is at http://factoidz.com/guide-to-writing-articles-seo-and-backlinks/
I have searched on a numbers of sites for learning SEO tools, articles writing tips, social bookmarking methods, keywords etc., but unfortunately I could not find my required information. I have to write huge futile material but there is no useful information about these topics. Here I would like to say Thank you for your very helpful tools and tips which I have written for the first time only on YOUR SITE. Thanks
Clair, to the best of my knowledge this should work for us just fine. Copyright is confusing as is Creative Commons, but this should clear some of it up. I didn’t mention in the article, that it could be a nice gesture to leave a message on the page where the photo came from telling the owner that you used one of their pictures for an article. There are some things I still don’t understand about these licenses. On Flickr there are a lot of amazing photos from the Hubble telescope, and these people have their Creative Commons license on them. I don’t know how they can have a copyright license like that on something that they didn’t take and doesn’t belong only to them. Even if they take a public domain photo and touch it up, I didn’t think they could copyright it.