I've seen people pay for hosting, pay for a domain name, pay for a theme, even pay for some addons to their site, yet when it comes to images, they'll hop over to Google Image search and download other people's images for their own use.
Not only is this clearly in breach of copyright law and theft, it also reflects badly on your site as a whole. Many of these images are poor quality, not the ideal size, or not relevant.
So even if you don't mind running the risk of getting sued big time, your site won't look much better for it.
Why People Prefer To Just Download Images
I think there are two main reasons why people love to just take images from Google:
1.) Laziness – the search engine is right there, so easy to use!
2.) Fear – People don't want to fork out a lot of money for paid images.
I'll address the fear issue first.
I understand what it's like when you start a new business online, you want to keep costs low, you want your business to be profitable, and you think having to buy an image for every article you write is going to soon add up to a lot of money.
That's where you're wrong.
Paid image sites like Fotolia are actually cheaper if you buy in bulk. You could get some top quality images for as little as $0.33 with a subscription. There are many different price ranges, but I think anyone serious about their business can afford that.
Additionally, when a site starts out, it has to prove itself to its new audience, it has to look professional and worth spending time on. The sooner it can do this, the sooner it will start earning money. In other words, investing a little in quality images at the beginning will make your site more profitable and sooner.
You can't afford NOT to do it.
Now for the laziness part.
Fotolia image search is superior to Google image search. Head there now if you don't believe me. Perform the same search at Google image search and at Fotolia and see which one brings back better images.
Fotolia won right?
The amount of effort it takes to find a great image for your site on Fotolia vs the amount of time wasted on Google image search is unreal.
Below, I'm going to showcase some images I've found on Fotolia for you.
Fotolia Image Library – My Selection
Trust me, these images are 10000000 times better than anything else you might find. For a few pennies, is it worth the hassle of looking elsewhere?
You can also check out my sites for sale here. Every one of those sites uses Fotolia images. See how good they look even for a skeleton site?
There are other paid image sites like Fotolia, but it's the one I use and recommend to everybody to use as well.
The legal Issue
I don't want to go too deep in this, but I'll explain a little. Please note this is not legal advice, just common sense.
If you download a copyrighted image from Google images or even Flickr, you run the risk of facing a lawsuit or other legal action. An image is somebody else's property, and in many cases a photographer has been paid for it. By taking it as you please and sticking it up on your own site, you are stealing. Plain and simple.
Buying ‘Royalty- Free' images on paid sites means you have paid once to use the image, and are not subjected to pay any further fees or royalties. You've bought the image (at a very fair, reasonable price) and you can use it on your site.
Say goodbye to stories such as this.
Great information, Bryon. Enjoyed the video…and the accent. 🙂
Haha, I don’t have an accent, don’t know what you are talking about 😉
Hey Bryon. Thanks for that info! I especially like that subscription option. I hadn’t really considered that but it seems to be a great option.
I’ll definitely look into that the next time and I already wish I had read/seen this earlier!
Yeah unless it is just for one or two images, a subscription is the best option by far. You can add downloads if you use up your monthly quota as well, which is still cheaper than buying them individually.
Thanks for the info Bryon I signed up to canstockphoto.com a few days ago seems to work on the same principal buy credits and use them to download photos. For me in the UK works out at 30p per credit and about 2 credits per photo. I could save more if buying larger credits but didn’t want to carried away. This gives me another option as sometimes you just can’t see the image you want at one location.
Just another thought do you need to put a note on your image to say where you purchased it as I said I’ve just started to do this and was wondering how do they know when scanning websites where the photos come from?
I’m not sure about other sites, but Fotolia doesn’t require you to attribute the image to them. It’s an interesting point, because some sites have the same photo, so how do they know if it came from Fotolia or BigStock? I’ll have to look into that. One thing for sure is that if they come knocking, you’ll want to let them know your membership details, and make sure you’re not in breach of the TOS. If you download a single license, just use the image once etc!
Yeah definitely check it out. Another good point you make is about diversity and with Fotolia I’ve virtually always found the image I’ve wanted (often something better). I wouldn’t subscribe to a smaller site with an inferior collection, but I get through a LOT of images.
Thank you so much Bryon for this information! I never heard about Fotolia before and seems very well and cheap. No excuses for lazy asses, no excuses for budgets!
There will always be excuses Andrea, but with Fotolia I find that once you get used to using it you find it difficult to return to “crappy” free images. Once you got stock you don’t go back! or bock.
If an image is not copyrighted is it okay to use it. I use images from other local bloggers and they use mine. Is there any liability with that. BTW thanks for an informative video
Well, if there’s an agreement between you and those bloggers then sure go for it. It’s more about “permission” than copyright. If you have permission and that person isn’t going to one day say “Hey, you owe me damages”, then it’s fine. Additionally, a lot of the time you just don’t know if an image is copyrighted or not, and what’s worse, some people on Flickr list images as “Common license” (you can use them), but they don’t even own the image! They’ve just curated it from somewhere else! So, be careful when it comes to identifying copyright.
Great video … I’d never heard of Fotolia before … I’ll be using it in the future, thanks!
I’m surprised, in terms of stock libraries Fotolia isn’t the most well known, but it should still be getting attention. Glad that you’ll use it in future though. Let me know if you get any questions.