Illegal Images
Me: “That’s a really interesting image, where did you get it?”
Client: “Google.”
This brief exchange often incites a thorough search, removal, and replacement of images on websites and other media. It’s also the first step to avoid massive fines and a dreaded lawsuit.
When projects require stock imagery, we give our clients an estimate of image usage fees, but that range is often vast because the pool of available legal imagery is equally as large.
While there is almost always a cost for image use, legal imagery usage does not have to be expensive. iStockPhoto is a rather affordable resource and one that we use often. Perhaps you know a burgeoning photographer or illustrator that will license their work in exchange for an art credit, just be sure to get it in writing. There is Creative Commons, but those rights, rules, and restrictions can be confusing for clients, so we don’t recommend it.
Not sure if you have properly purchased images on your site?
Head over to Google Images and click on the camera icon in the search field. From there, you can upload any image and Google will show you where else your image resides on the Web. If it appears on a stock art website or with a watermark and you know that you haven’t paid a dime for that image, you likely don’t have usage rights. Even if you have the image file, but don’t have a bill of sale or contract for the image. Take it down immediately.
Think you won’t get caught? You would be wrong. Last year, a client received a hefty bill from a licensing agency for an image that they used on their website and then again on social media channels. We were able to help them navigate this kerfuffle, but this single image resulted in a fine and they had to strip all images from their website because they were all “from Google.”
Companies like Copytrack and Pixsy protect creative content from unauthorized use by finding their clients’ images in use across the web and then checking to see if you have properly licensed the image. If you didn’t, expect a bill for the cost of the use of the image, its usage duration, and then penalties and fees. Even if you remove the image in question, reach out to the agency, and start a dialog. Ignoring the bill just means they may take the next step and start legal action. Those legal fees will far outshine the original image cost.
Now, the good news, and there is good news. For those people and businesses with limited marketing budgets, there are options that will allow you to get images included with some of your other purchased services. For example, Shopify and GoDaddy have a healthy selection of images available when you sign up for their e-commerce and WordPress hosting solutions respectively.
When you start a new project with a creative provider, set a realistic cap on your image budget and let them find the images because they will have the best resources and maybe even a healthy library of properly licensed images.
Creatively yours,
Deb
Anecdote
One of my first jobs out of college was for a now-defunct, mid-sized design firm. One of the owners — let’s call him Charles — was a very accomplished and recognized designer. He often said that his former boss would claim Charles’s work as his own. As a result, there was a fair amount of talk about copyright and creative ownership. Yet while this was going on, Charles would tell employees to take digital photographs of printed images in magazines and stock photo books and then use them within their marketing materials and in presentations. The hypocrisy was astounding.
