It should come at no surprise that I am an advocate for copyright laws. Nothing bothers me more than illegal music copying and stealing images off the web.
Just because you find something does not mean you can have it and/or use it as you desire. Someone else took the time and effort to create something and they may not want you using it.
I feel like I am in a constant ‘debate’ with someone over the rights of copying a movie, music, images, or any other digital work.
Just a couple weeks ago I had a conversation with a client that went something like this:
Me: “I cannot do that.”
Client: “Oh yes you can – I know you know how to get images.”
Me: “I know HOW to get the images, but it is against the law.”
As a rule, you simply cannot find an image on the web and use it for your own use. That has the very high potential of making you guilty of copyright infringement.
The news service Reuters just published an article where they reported that Microsoft is being sued for doing just that!
Rather than draw from a pool of licensed images, the lawsuit claimed, the product grants access to the billions of images that can be found online, without regard to whether the photos are copyrighted.
“In effect, defendant has turned the entirety of the world’s online images into little more than a vast, unlicensed ‘clip art’ collection for the benefit of those website publishers who implement the Bing Image Widget, all without seeking permission from the owners of copyrights in those images,” the lawsuit said.Reuters
One of the things we do in the WordPress Inner Circle Club is provide folks with a list of resources where you can obtain royalty free images that you are ALLOWED to use on your website. Some images will cost a fee to use (around a dollar an image for the license) and in many cases there are sources you can use images for free!
Come join us! WordPress Inner Circle Club
Leave a Reply