This could get expensive!

Use the logo of your favorite football club as your profile picture, use a quick product photo from an online catalog on eBay or spruce up your Facebook page with images you find? Completely normal, right? But be careful, this can be expensive!

“What you find on Google you can use”. This often seems to be the general consensus. However, this is a mistake because many images are protected by copyright and problems can arise when using them. As checked4you reports, when searching for images on Google you should definitely take the note “The image may be protected by copyright” seriously.

You can safely assume that pretty much everything you see in any search is protected by copyright. In principle, only those who took the picture are entitled to use it, in particular: to publish it! And they don't have to explicitly explain it or register it somewhere, it just is. For you as an image seeker, the basic rule is simple:

When it comes to other people's images, just always assume that you can't use them without permission. And that means: find out who the picture is from, contact us and ask. And then wait for permission.

If you don't do it that way and simply use a photo found somewhere on your homepage, in the community photo album or as a product image on Ebay, you risk (expensive) warnings and claims for damages being made against you. Usually only the blatant cases that usually have to do with music downloads in peer-to-peer networks make the news. But there are also enough rights holders who are just waiting to issue warnings to the owners of small, private websites because of wrongly used images!

Legal + free = possible!

If you want to keep your images accurate, that doesn't mean you always have to pay for their use. There are a number of portals where you can use photos (for non-commercial purposes) free of charge upon request, such as: B. Freeimages , rgbstock.com , pixelio.de or piqs.de.​ With such portals, it is important to pay attention to the exact terms of use: How and for what can the images be used? What sources do I have to provide (usually: portal and photographer)? And even if you don't necessarily have to according to these conditions: It generally doesn't hurt to ask the photographer again and wait for their answer before publishing the picture. And that is above all: nice!

Keyword: Creative Commons

With relatively little effort you can find a lot of stuff, and the creators are often even happy that someone wants to use it. The internet can suddenly legally become a real miracle bag. Such “gifts” can often be recognized by the “CC” symbol, which stands for a “Creative Commons” license. Here, too - to put it simply - it is about the possibility of free use, where only certain rules based on different licenses have to be adhered to. You can find more information about this here and here .

The CC logo
The CC logo

Your own pictures are also possible

After all, you can take photos yourself, and in that case you are of course the author. But even then there can be catches. Shows the image e.g. B. another person, they must generally be asked for permission , unless they are just standing small in the landscape or in a crowd. This quickly becomes apparent if you briefly imagine that you were the motive and didn't know anything about it. A phenomenon that occurs particularly frequently in the many photo albums of the countless community profiles (Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, etc.). Maybe you should check your own albums again! You can find out more about legal questions regarding your own profile here .

The points mentioned here apply exactly the same to videos, music or texts. If you are looking for more information on this actually much more complex topic, you can find it at www.irights.info .


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )