Copywrited Images are No Joke

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As an internet user for 20 years and a webmaster for half of that time, I feel like I know how to navigate these online streets. I know how to find what I’m after, I’m conscious of everything I post, and I’m familiar with all the appropriate etiquette.

Or so I thought.

You see, there’s lots of things that we do online that we know we shouldn’t really be doing. People share music and videos that they don’t own all the time. I’m of the Kazaa and Limewire generation, so I and everyone else from the time took advantage of the fact that this content was there to be downloaded. We would stack up all these MP3s and MP4s without a second thought of any repercussions that could come as a result of it.

The same goes for images. The internet is flooded with images, and you would have just thought that you can use whatever and go about your business. I know all about stock imagery and the fact that lots of people pay big money for images, but I thought it was people being extra careful.

I also know all about reverse image searches and all of that stuff, but because I don’t tend to use anyone else’s images for anything, it’s not at the front of my mind. Who’s really going to go search for their own images to see if anyone’s used them? Well that’s my ignorance as someone that doesn’t sell their own photography online. It’s how they make a living, and it’s their right to act if they see someone using their images when they haven’t agreed to it.

I say that I don’t use anyone else’s images, but that’s overlooking a lot of the content I publish and don’t really think about. I have websites for which the sole intention is to gain sponsored post opportunities – where people pay to have their content published on the site for authority/exposure/the sake of contributing to my currency collection service. If the price is right, I’ll publish those posts and keep it moving. Usually these posts come with an image that they’ll have sourced from a free stock image site. Sometimes not.

In October 2018 I got an email from Pixsy, specialists in online copyright claims for photographer. They wanted £425 because one of the sponsored posts published on my site featured an image on that was sourced from free stock image site, but wasn’t actually meant to be.

No way!

FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE POUNDS. Payment required in 14 days. Are you serious? I didn’t even choose the image. It was meant to be free to use

Ultimately I negotiated the price down for quick payment and removing the image altogether, but I had to pay up.

This served as a lesson for me to respect the rights of copyright owners when I’m publishing content online, even when I wasn’t the one that created the posts/articles/videos/whatever it may be. I have a whole pool of people that I got into blogging and I took one for the team. I’m glad it happened to me first. I had to let them all know that they need to follow my lead and be more aware of what can happen if they’re not careful. My advice to you is to do the same.