Regarding the latest newsletter about incorrectly crediting images, is it suggested that we take down all images that are not copyrighted or cites "google images" or "microsoft images." Should we, who are guilty, expect a violation email soon? Or worse, get idled?
I thought the best thing to do was to just put a photo of myself on my hubs which can work like a logo. I suppose you could think of it as something like "self-marketing", if you know what I mean. My face can work as a sort of symbol of my work if that makes sense. I'm not a professional photographer, so what else am I supposed to do? Photos I take using my phone always look so tacky and I haven't got a camera, and I don't want legal problems if I use stuff I've found on the web even if it is supposed to be royalty free. I've heard some nasty stories about that in the past.
Thanks, Miriam. That is an idea but seems that it would soon becoming boring, like Oprah on the cover of all her magazines : -/ I do understand your dilemma about not being a photographer. I am luckcy in that I now use my own photos and do have photography training. But I am concerned about the work ahead of us with making these corrections.
You could check out a site like this one
http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/
I have not used it for HubPages or for my blogs as mostly I use my own photos.
Although there are places that offer images for commercial use for free; it would still be wise to read the small print and to check that the images you select to use really do come into the OK for re-use here category.
I wrote Hub Pages a letter voicing the very same concerns a couple of days ago after realizing I'm guilty of violating their rules. They haven't responded yet but I'm now going through all 132 Hubs to correct the problem.
I suspect they will give us time to update them however what a great opportunity to edit all of my Hubs and update the material. I'm tying to look at this in a positive light and see it as a opportunity to do so much needed editing.
Will they start flagging our hubs probable at some point but I'm sure they will give us the time needed to get the job done.
Good question, I guess Google Image just don't cut it but interesting enough many of the artwork and graphics I have done for my Hubs is now showing up on Google Images so perhaps I need to credit my photos and art as well!
Google Image is just the part of Google search that focuses purely on images. It does not store the images nor has any rights over them.
If you take an image you found through Google Images, that is the same as copying a web site you found on the standard Google Search!
However, if you go into the search options on Google Image, you will find a filter that will let you narrow the search to images permitted for commercial use. I have heard, though, that this is not always accurate, so it would still be best to follow the link to where the image is being hosted in order to ascertain whether it really is free to use or not.
Thanks for the clarfication and advice, WriteAngled.
This is good to know! I've got just one Hub and am working on the second, and I'm finding the task of getting good, available photos the most demanding part of the whole process.
One of my son's friends put some so-called royalty free photos up on his web site and got fined about £3000.00 by the owners. It's better to leave photos alone all together if you ask me unless they're yours.
It is okay if you quote the CC commons license number that is provided with authorised images, along with any other attributions etc the owner of the picture asks for (Flickr makes the process very easy). It is also not necessary to pay any fines if you are sent them by the 'owner' of a photo, as they have to send you a 'cease and desist' notice first to give you a chance to remove the images without any penalty. It is only if you refuse to remove them that they can take you to court. 'Getty' are guilty of ignoring this aspect of the law and frequently 'try it on' by trying to send people massive invoices claiming they will take the person who used their images to court if they aren't paid, but this is not legal if you read the small print in the copyright law, as they have not sent a 'cease and desist' notice first.
But why take the risk of having your name dirtied? I mean, let's face it, even if you don't have to pay the fine, your good name's still soiled afterwards. Why not just use a nice photo of yourself, and if that's you on your avatar you've got a nice face, and let that be your trademark web wide? That's what I'm doing now. It connects your face to a certain standard that you've set and that's what you want to be putting on all your hubs. Everyone to their own, but that's what I think.
I do use my own profile image, and all the images I use within hubs these days are legal images (although in the early days I used to simply use Google images because I didn't know any better). Certainly I would not condone using illegal images knowingly, all I was saying is that it is not legal for a company that finds you have used an image of theirs to send you an invoice unless they first give you the opportunity to remove the image by sending you a 'cease and desist' notice. I don't believe this would 'dirty' your name though, as there are many tens of thousands of people with photos on the net, so how on earth would your name get dirtied 'Internet Wide' as a result? I can't think of anyone I have heard of who is 'known' for using illegal images, therefore it seems clear that it doesn't work that way. I still use my profile picture as my 'trademark' but in many hubs you also really need photos relevant to the topic of the hub within the hub itself. It also isn't always possible to take them yourself, e.g. if you are writing about elephants but don't live anywhere near any, or Great White Sharks and you live thousands of miles from where you could photograph them. In these instances 'Creative Commons' images are the way to go.
You could be right, but everyone to their own. I mean, if you know what could happen, you don't go asking for it, do you? My son's friend went before the local magistrates and lost the case. He won't have anything to do with the internet these days and who could blame him? And if you've had something like that happen in front of your eyes, you don't go doing the copy cat thing, do you? No, if you ask me, the best thing to do is steer clear of any photos you don't own. It's different on my Avon blog because I'm selling the stuff and I've got Avon's written permission to use the photos. Besides, I'm their top seller in the region, so they'd be silly to start playing games with me. Anyway, I'd warn anyone to be very wary.
It is a shame what happened to your son, but of course it seems very likely that if he had quoted the relevant part of the law in question he would not have been found guilty (assuming of course he had already removed the images from his site). It sounds like the magistrate knew no better either, and certainly hadn't read the small print of the copyright law (which I did). I fear you have been influenced by what happened to him, and don't realise how easy it actually is to find images that you can legally use with the specified attributions (no risks involved). Without sufficient good and relevant photos in your hubs (or other articles elsewhere) you are unlikely to be successful in earning online, and as I stated earlier it is impossible to use your own photos in all cases simply due to being unable to be in the correct place to take them. Using legal images is not 'asking for it' , hence why they exist. I have been writing online for over 4 years now and know this is the case (I have well over 320 articles published here and elsewhere, plus two websites of my own). Right now I earn a good 3 figure sum online each month, and although I started off as very naive, I am not any longer, and have many top webmasters as friends who have taught me a huge chunk of what I know.
A 'Learning Center' link newbies might find helpful is:
http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/legal-image-use
Another useful example of why a 'cease and desist' notice must be sent first is illustrated below based on an actual case where Getty Images had told a site they had used their image without permission and now had to pay. The law that shows this to be incorrect is stated clearly in the text:
Quote:
"As a result we were called by a company called NCS Recovery which is a collection agency. When the woman told us of Getty demanding payment for this we told them it is against the law what they are doing and she said how is that possible? When I told her:
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)
“97.—(1) Where in an action for infringement of copyright it is shown that at the time of the infringement the defendant did not know, and had no reason to believe, that copyright subsisted in the work to which the action relates, the plaintiff is not entitled to damages against him, but without prejudice to any other remedy.”
“It is an offence under Section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 to harass of debtors with a view to obtaining payment including the issue of letters which convey a threat or false information with intent to cause distress or anxiety.”
Her reply was this is not a depth collection that they are calling to just settle this matter with Getty. We told them the matter was settled when we removed the 2 images in question and we are not paying a dime. She replied ok thank you for your time.
My advise to you is read the (C) law, they are required by law to send a removal letter first, by not doing this puts them in violation of the (C) Act."
Basically it appears companies operating in the same way as Getty do are in breach of s.40, especially in cases where the image user had no knowledge that they were using the image improperly.
Cheers for the info. As I said, it was my son's friend who got fined, so I don't know all the ins and outs, but I'll pass it on. All a bit complicated if you ask me. Looks like you can put up whatever photos you like as long as you take them down if the owner tells you to. I don't know. Still think it's better to stay on the safe side. Let's face it, the web is global, but the countries still have their own laws. I'll do some more reading up on it after Christmas. I've got my sister and her two kids over for Christmas so it's all a bit hectic at the moment. I'll be glad when it's all over.
Well have a lovely Christmas, and I am glad you found this info useful. It is important that we should add photos to our articles to improve their quality, both for our readers and in Google's eyes, but of course we should use the free images, properly attributed and under Creative Commons licences (unless of course you do have relevant photos of your own that you can use). If a genuine mistake is made though and an image does turn out to belong to someone else, then don't pay any 'fines' and point out to them that they have failed to send you a 'cease and desist' notice first to give you a chance to remove the image. If they try to force the issue and claim that they don't need to send a cease and desist notice first then quote the relevant section of the law to them (as shown in my previous post). This should resolve the problem, but just be careful in the future to make sure the images are under a Creative Commons License and that you have honoured the terms of the relevant license. The copyright laws are basically international, so individual countries laws shouldn't be a factor.
That's probably true - so I guess it comes down to your own integrity. Saying "you can put whatever photos you like as long as you take them down if the owner tells you" is like saying "it's OK to shoplift so long as you put the stuff back if you get caught".
Have a browse around the forums and see the furore when someone steals copies of our Hubs. Photographers are creative artists just like us, and while some photographs may be quick throwaways, many are carefully crafted and the photographer relies on them for their living. It always amazes me that somewriters can have so little respect for that.
Using photos from Flickr is very easy and you can't get in any trouble for using them, if you choose photos which are licensed for re-use - and credit the photographer by including a link to the photo on Flickr.
Your right somethgblue, we will get time but that newsletter was definitely our first warning. Thanks for your input.
Hi Jan, this is my suggestion. Take two hubs each day and do new searches using Creative Commons. Through Creative commons you will find photos which you can use for commercial purposes, modify and share. Note the license on the photo whether it's CC-BY-2.0 or CC-BY-3.0, You must attribute the owner of the photo and the website you found the photo. Here is an example of an attribution: Carolee Samuda CC-BY-2.0-SA via cardisa.hubpages.com.
If you have found photos on Google images the copyrights may be reserved and you run the risk of violations, especially if the owner reports you. There is a photo search they can use to find if anyone has used their photos without their permission.
Another thing to do is contact the website and ask permission to use the photo and you must state that in the source. I have a hub with all FBI photos. I contacted them asked them and they told me to use whatever I wanted.
Hi Cardisa. I guess I have some work to do, eh? I only have 29 hubs and the last 3 or 4 are my own photos. I also recall, however, that hp wants us to copyright our own for others to use legally. Whew! Too much. Thank you for the help. Would the easiest way to get started be to right click on one of the images to see what info pops up? Sounds like you're saying remove them and start from scratch.
Yes, I suggest you start over. I am not sure what will happen if you right click but if you can find the original site then you can find the Creative Commons license and take it from there.
Where is the newsletter on the images I have not seen it and can't seem to find it.
I think you may have misunderstood the newsletter. No one should ever site "google images" or "microsoft images" anywhere, because it's not legal to use photos from those sources. You can use those services to find images, but then you have to go to the website where the image appears, check that the owner allows you to use the photo (if he does, there will be a license or statement telling you so - if there's nothing, it's illegal to use it).
I'm not sure HubPages would unpublish for using illegal images because it would be too big a job for them to check. I think they're just trying to do the right thing by photographers. After all, how do you feel when someone steals one of your articles? If we, as writers, expect our copyright to be respected, then why don't we give the same consideration to photographers? They're creative artists too.
The rule to remember is, ALL photos on the internet are copyright (and therefore illegal to copy) unless stated otherwise.
Thank you, Marisa. I really needed that straightforward explanation. As a newbie to online writing, I really didn't get the copyright thing with images as it relates to "permission." Text, yes, but images, no. It's becoming clearer to me now that you have to have a legal mindset with every decision you make with online writing regarding your rights and the rights of others. The whole thing makes my head spin and requires fulltime attention that I don't have. (Sigh)
Not really, they're essentially the same. Just remember that everything (text or images) is copyright unless there is something on the page to say otherwise.
You want to use images that say "Public Domain" or "Some Rights Reserved" or "Licensed under Creative Commons". And even then, you have to include a link to the photographer's website or the image itself. If an image doesn't have any of those annotations, you'll need to email the webmaster and ask for permission.
Commercial Use and Royalty Free mean diddly squat. To ensure your working with copyright effectively make sure the Creative Commons attributes or copyright licensing agreements are being followed for photographs that display their rights of use.
In other words, unless you can use photos given as permissible (as free for use or free to use as you please, copyright holders usually will provide license use in their terms) for the copyright owner of the photo.
More info at http://creativecommons.org/ & at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
This site is a great source of free images with CC licenses and the numbers you need to quote when citing your sources. I use it all the time:
http://search.creativecommons.org/
You are very welcome. The nice thing about that site is the fact you can choose exactly where to search for the free images, i.e. Flickr, Google etc. It is a kind of 'one stop shop' for free pictures.
I find Creative commons, flickr and freedigitalphotos.net the best for finding free photos for use of course with proper attribution.
I'm putting suspenders on my big girl panties! I know what you mean. Or it feels like I do. Either way Hi Jan!
by Catherine Giordano 10 years ago
I'm very confused. I learned on the forum that I could use the google images tool to filter for art that was free to use. When I use the filter, pictures from "deviantart" come up frequently. When I go to the page, I don't see anything except a copyright notice. However,...
by carol stanley 11 years ago
Can we use Google Images on our hubs?I see many hubs with google images and yet I heard we are not supposed to use them.
by Jeff Davis 14 years ago
is it necessary to cite the origin of your photos if you downloaded them from somewhere? and is it necessary to copyright or somehow mark photos posted that you yourself has taken? thank you in advance for any input.
by Rajan Singh Jolly 12 years ago
Is it legal to use Google images for hubs?
by 2uesday 14 years ago
I thought only one or two of my photos were on Google Images which I thought was good as it would bring more traffic to those Hubs. However when I type in my hub name and HubPages it has nearly all my photos plus some that are not mine (i.e. I think they are of people who have left comments on the...
by Nell Rose 10 years ago
I have checked a few of my articles over the course of a week, not all of them but most of the popular ones, and I noticed that when I put them in Google search they only show up through another link such as Pinterest or Twitter. They seem to have totally disappeared apart from that. Any help you...
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |