Understanding Photos & Images Copy Rights Restrictions

Images or photos are very important for a successful hubs or websites. We all know how it feels when we are unable to download beautiful pictures, copy right restricted.

I am sure searching for free stock photos and images has been also a dilemma. We fail to download gorgeous pictures when we don’t understand the license restrictions.

Some creators donate their work to sites such as:

http://search.creativecommons.org/

YOU MOST KEEP IN MIND the original creator restriction or common license attribution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution for the image or photo, so when searching for copy right free photos to be used on hubs or websites, you most check the following boxes, first step to avoid violations.

I want something that I can...

use for commercial purposes

modify, adapt, or build upon

Checking the original creator terms of a Creative Commons licensed work is the second step and it varies as follows;

ü Attribution,

ü NonCommercial,

ü No Derivatives and ShareAlike.

Attribution marked images are the ones you can copy distribute display perform and remix, the original creator authorized it when donated the photo or image as long as you give credit the way requested.

NonCommercial. BE AWARE OF THIS RESTRICITION, YOU CAN NOT DISTRIBUTE THIS IMAGE OR PHOTO FOR COMMERCIAL USE,

HUBS, COMPANY WEBSITES people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix this photos or images for non-commercial purposes only. And in case you want to use it for commercial purposes, you must contact the original author for permission.

ShareAlike. These images or pictures can be downloaded only if the subject of your hub or website is similar or much related to the original author’s idea. Example: if you download a sharealike picture from a food related topic you can’t use it for a theater.

NoDerivatives. You can download these pictures but alterations are prohibited. If you want to alter, transform, build upon, or remix this image or photo, you must contact the original author for permission.

Some times you have to give credit to who deserves it or if the original author request it in his common license.

There are different ways to give credit when downloading a image or photo.

ü Linking to the article

ü Collective credit to the website or company downloaded from (e.g. Wikipedia community or http://search.creativecommons.org/).

ü Linking to the version history
for online use: linking full list of authors.

ü Full list of authors must always be copied.

ü No credit is needed. (Sometimes you don’t need to give credit)

These are free stock photography sites you can also use but always check the license restrictions some copy rights may apply.

http://search.creativecommons.org/
http://www.sxc.hu
http://www.morguefile.com
http://www.freerangestock.com

For more information visit these sites:

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/13588

http://creativecommons.org/image/

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/07/13/google-image-search-adds-creative-commons-options/

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Flickr_files