I see Hubs where beautiful photos are used and are from Pinterest. The photos are usually credited as being from Pins. Are we allowed to use those photos??
I doubt it. To use on HP we need permission from the owner of the picture---whoever created it.
We can only use photos with express permission from the copyright holders. This goes for any original content you use on any website, whether it is an image, video, music, or text, unless it is out of copyright. (copyright generally expires 70 years after the death of the author). Alternatively you can use public domain images or images which the creator/owner has shared and have a Creative Commons license. For the latter, you need to add a backlink to the image source plus an attribution to the creator, name of the source website and a specification of the type of license.
There are lots of Creative Commons images you can use on Wikimedia Commons. Some websites also allow you to use low res versions of royalty free images for free (you pay for the higher res versions), as long as they are attributed properly on your website.
This is the HubPages guide in the Learning Center to proper use of images in your hub
http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/legal-image-use
Hi Mary. To use any photos found on Pinterest you have to follow links to the original source to see if the photo is free to use (public domain or creative commons). Then proper attribution has to be noted on the image in the hub.
The only attribution I see (if any, at all, is "Pinterest".
There are a lot of people who don't understand how to use and properly attribute photos. Just because somebody has pinned a photo to Pinterest, it does not mean it is free to use.
Hi Mary,
I have wondered about that myself. I just discovered Pixaby, which has thousands of the most beautiful photos ever and they are all legal/free and you don't have to even attribute them, just write Pixaby as source. It is one of the ones HP recommends and it is so easy to access and search all for free. I found two beautiful photos of a dog in the countryside. I have to go back on my hubs and see if I have some Pins that I may have used before I understood what were the legal photos. It is hard at times to find the right ones on Wikimedia Commons, except they do have great flowers and such or history type photos. I learned from hubber lambservant who wrote a great hub on legal photo sights, and that is where I discovered creationswap for any Biblical or Christian photos. Oh, freedigitalphotos dot net is great too and easy to search. I see a lot who use morgue file too. Well, you did not ask about what are all the legal photo sites, but just Pinterest photos ...sorry.
I have used Pixabay, too. I also like Morgue file. I recently discovered 123rf.com They have stock photos that are free to use. Thanks, Faith.
Hi Mary,
I started going through some of my hubs and did find one that I used from Pinterest about taking a leap of faith, but I was delighted for find a much better real photo on Creationswap, which is a totally free site too. It is a more dramatic real photo with the caption already done on it. I will go through the rest of my hubs to see what I have done. Thank you for bringing up this question. Peace on this Memorial Day.
The images on 123rf.com are not free, for the most part. The images posted there are offered with watermarks, as samples, for people interested in paying for stock images.
I see you already got your answer from eugbug and that information is correct. So many people improperly use photos to which they do not have the rights to post.
This is exactly what I thought, but I get a little jealous when I see photos used from Pinterest that are certainly superior to what I can find! I have never done that myself.
Mary, don't be jealous! Simply go to Morguefile.com or Pixabay.com and choose great photos that you can then change and refine using picmonkey.com. You would be amazed at the beautiful free to use without accreditation photos you can find, fix and use.
TT2 I have used picmonkey, but I'm terrible at editing. They used to be completely free, but now they charge for an upgrade to do most editing. I tried to edit an old photo of mine that showed the date. I worked and worked to erase the date. I'll have to work on that more.
They have always charged for the upgrades, but the other edits are totally free and I find them sufficient to do just about anything I need when I combine the edits with Pixabay and Morguefile.
You have to learn the edits, but once you do, they are great. I have edited every single one of my photos on Picmonkey. Check 'em out and see what you think.
FreeDigitalPhotos.net have lots of images you can use. Try also the government website usa.gov which has public domain images of government works
I know it's frustrating but it's exactly the same as seeing someone shoplifting and feeling jealous that they're "allowed" to do it and you're not.
Just because other people are doing it, and getting away with it, doesn't make it right or legal. It's up to your own conscience whether you feel happy stealing other people's property (in this case, their photos).
Thanks all for some of the suggested free photo sites. I've been relying too much on Flickr and would like to expand my options.
The best way to avoid copyright dificulties is to make and use your own photos or take them from the sites the others suggested.
The short answer is no.
I liked the analogy about shoplifters I'll probably use that in explanation in the future!
by Brian Leekley 13 years ago
I am working on an as yet unpublished (as of 12-30-2011) hub about Marquette, Michigan. I found some relevant photos online that allow commercial use, and I'll include the best of those in the hub. I also found some good, relevant photos that I can't use because the license says no commercial use,...
by Roscoe Wallace 10 years ago
Can't get approved by AdSense. What am I doing wrong?I have six Hubs, and I've been on HubPages for a couple of weeks. I've applied twice and been turned down, citing "Insufficient Content". I've tried asking on Google AdSense, but have only gotten a...
by Titia Geertman 7 years ago
Strolling through the vertical sites I see so many photos that are either not credited at all or there's only the mention of a name. Is it not a rule anymore to give proper credit to photos that are not your own even if you get them from free sites?
by Richard Bivins 10 years ago
I just came across This Post that discusses a new database on Flickr where you can search over 2.5 million public domain images from books and other publications dating to 500 years old.Of course you can go right to Flickr but the above linked article shows exactly how to navigate the...
by Faith Reaper 11 years ago
In a recent HubPages weekly email, it was discussing the fact that many use photos and do not provide a source. I was thinking that this may easily be addressed by HP by requiring a source in the source field inside the photo capsule, whether it is "self" or the Freedigitalphotos,...
by ofmelancholy 15 years ago
Picture covers bon jovi by the way.
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) |