Are google images copyright free?

You are still violating copyright, so using these tactics does not release you from liability. You could be sued. It’s a serious matter, as you need specific permission from the copyright holder.

This can be confusing when you come across an image on Google Images, but these days you’ll notice a declaration to remind you to check: “Images may be subject to copyright”. Google Images sources images from all over the internet and catalogues them for easy searchability. Images have digital rights managed (a sort of ‘fingerprint’) and their use is easily detectable. New software enables identification of unlicensed imagery and acts to protect copyright owners. So imagery can be tracked and found, even if it has been modified or even recreated. The image is then flagged up to the copyright owner so that they can verify if the correct license is held.

What are the alternatives to Google images?

Your best bet to ensure copyright compliance is to use a photographer or take your own photos. Everyone has a digital camera or a smartphone with a camera. You can create perfectly branded and styled photos this way. And hiring a photographer isn’t as expensive as you might think. This can be a valuable investment for your business that pays off again and again as you maximise the use of your images across a range of marketing collateral from your website to your social media accounts.

If you don’t have time to take your own photos or can’t afford a photographer, stock image libraries are going to be your best bet. Stock photos are particularly useful in support of blog content and social media updates, where you aren’t able to allocate time or budget to these quick and regular marketing activities.

Image stock libraries

The problem is that not everyone has the time to take photos! That’s when media agencies buy expensive subscriptions to stock banks; this allows agencies to search among millions of images, and use them for any purpose and client, anytime.

To avoid all the stress and potential financial loss of using unlicensed images, Wikipedia Commons is a great place to start (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Commons), an online repository of free use images, sounds, and other media files. You can use images that are Creative Commons licensed or simply public domain. Just check the usage guidelines for each image to check if and how you should be crediting the image owner.

Creative Commons (CC) licensed images (http://creativecommons.org/about) are still protected under the country’s intellectual property laws. There is indeed an owner who has copyright, but has allowed his/her work to be used by anyone for personal, educational or non-profit non-commercial purposes. There are different types of CC licenses, and depending on the authorisation granted, images can be copied, distributed, or altered, provided that the owner of the work is acknowledged. Note that this attribution is not needed for images in the public domain.

Public domain images are works not protected under intellectual property laws. They are images whose copyrights have expired or their creators can no longer claim exclusive rights over them; the public now owns the work. Anyone can then display, copy, manipulate or distribute them. Next time you Google search images, consider using the search tool button to filter images by license labelled for: reuse, reuse with modification, non-commercial reuse with modification or non-commercial reuse.

Where to find great images without infringing on copyright

It’s actually really easy to search for and find stock images, and to get an image that connects with your brand. Using stock images is also way faster than sorting through the many inappropriate images that may come up in a Google Image search, especially knowing that once you’re found an image there you still need to confirm copyright compliance. There are loads of great stock photography websites on the internet these days. We’ve collated a massive list of stock photo sites to get you started.