Pictures on websites

[ch4rli3]

I am in the process of having a website built for me and although I have my own pictures to go on the website of procedures and treatments etc, I am wanting to have some sort of pictures of peoples faces.......... mmmmm Im struggling to explain myself here, but basically what are the rules on using pictures off the internet and putting them on to my website or is this not aloud?
I dont mean taking pictures from someone elses website but searching on google ...... ?

 

[Ruth Mills]

Most images will be subject to copyright, and simply doing a Google image search for nice images that you like, without checking to see who owns them, and if they are royalty free, could leave you open to being sued for copyright violation if the owner of the image sees their work on your web site without having been asked permission to use it.

If you want "stock" photos of faces, etc, the best thing to do is to use a stock photo web site like Stock Photography: Search Royalty Free Images & Photos where you can buy stock photos for use on your web site etc. Probably costs around £1 per photo or thereabouts for an image at a suitable resolution for incorporation into a web site.

 

[ch4rli3]

Hi Ruth

Thank you for your reply, I knew you'd be able to help me

Im not wanting to use peoples pictures and pass it off as my work, just after images of nice looking people....... that sounds a bit strange I know, but honestly not meant to!!

Thats great about that site and buying an image! Thanks alot for your help!

 

[Ruth Mills]

Im not wanting to use peoples pictures and pass it off as my work, just after images of nice looking people....... that sounds a bit strange I know, but honestly not meant to!!

No, I didn't expect you to be using pictures of other people's permanent make-up work (I'm pretty certain you would never do that) - all I meant was that photographers can get a bit shirty if they see their images popping up on other people's web sites :hug:

 

[ch4rli3]

Oh yeah I can understand that!!
I have all my own pictures of my permanent make up, am wanting to find a main picture to go on the main page of website and wasn't sure where most people got their images from as I know most are copyright protected.

Im just having a look through the istock site

 

[emerald]

I get mine from a site called fotolia they dont really cost much for web size images from as little as 75p and this gives you the right to use the image on your site/pricelists etc

 

[Beautification]

www.deviantart.com

This isn't the best but if you type in lips or eyes you cang et some pics instead of typing beauty therapy or something.

 

[Ruth Mills]

www.deviantart.com

This isn't the best but if you type in lips or eyes you cang et some pics instead of typing beauty therapy or something.

Again please be aware of any copyright restrictions of images on Deviant Art. If no copyright information for an image is given, then please consider the work to be under copyright, and not to be used without first getting permission.

However, some people on there may have licensed their images under a "Creative Commons" licence, which can allow use by other people - but please check the terms of the licence, as some licences can restrict the use of images for commercial purposes. Some "Creative Commons" licences also have an Attribution clause, where you would need to put a link in to the creator of the work on your web site.

 

[Ruth Mills]

I get mine from a site called fotolia they dont really cost much for web size images from as little as 75p and this gives you the right to use the image on your site/pricelists etc

Another very good choice, and of the same ilk to iStockPhoto.com and such like.

 

[Ruth Mills]

Actually, I have recently been informed by a fellow geek of some extremely shady activities by one of those stock photo companies. The speculative cheeky b*****ds sent her a demand for over £900 for a piddly little image for which they claimed copyright that was on her web site (and she didn't even put it on there - her web designer did).

Now it would also appear that there is a company out there called PicScout who runs "bots" (automated software programs that crawl the Web) - but theirs are of a rather more sinister nature than those of Google and the rest of the search engines. The purposes of their bots is to trawl the Web looking for "unlicensed images", and they have a fancy algorithm that's using some sort of steganographic watermarking to identify if the image is one of their copyrighted ones.

The following link gives some more in-depth technical information about their tactics: PicScout, Getty Images and Goodbye iStockPhoto..!

Now I'm getting a bit paranoid, because even though I've done a couple of sites for people that use (legitimately purchased) images from iStockPhoto, I don't trust the sort of tactics that these guys use, and frankly haven't got the time to deal with "spammigation" (speculative automated bulk legal action) - we had enough of that last year with the likes of Lowell Group (a debt collection agency) attempting to chase Sonia for a non-existent debt from a mobile phone account that would have been older than 6 years anyway, and so legally unenforceable. But thanks to that article in the link above, I've updated my Linux firewall to block all known IP addresses from PicScout, so if they try to waste my server bandwidth speculatively looking for supposedly copyright infringed images on there, then they can go jump, as they'll just be wasting their time, as my firewall will be dropping all their packets, so they'll have to wait a good while for the TCP/IP connection to time out, ha ha!!!

 

[Sharkster]

Ruth this 'image bot' thing sounds scary (I'm thinking Terminator!)

Ch4rli3 - Have you asked any of your suppliers if they have images that you could use?

 

[Ruth Mills]

Ruth this 'image bot' thing sounds scary (I'm thinking Terminator!)

Ch4rli3 - Have you asked any of your suppliers if they have images that you could use?

Too right! As well as the legal people taking the mick by their extortionate demands for use of the images. Apparently they still want to milk you for silly money even if you take the image off your site! It's like Robin Hood in reverse - take from the poor (i.e. hard-working small business), give to the rich (faceless corporations who should know better)...

The silly thing is, you'll probably pay a couple of quid from a stock photo site to download an image of a suitable size to use on your web site. So why do companies like that want to take the mickey (and risk alienating their customers) by pursuing such heavy-handed legal action for frankly extortionate demands???

 

[Ruth Mills]

For the record, according to some posts I read last night (including the link I posted earlier), companies that use PicScout include Getty and Corbis. And I think that iStockPhoto is owned by one of them.

Hence, my advice would be that if you choose to use one of those companies, be very careful to keep a record of your transactions with them - so that if you get a speculative letter accusing you of using an unlicensed image on your web site, you'll be able to provide documentary evidence that you actually did purchase images from them, so then they won't have a leg to stand on, ha ha!!!

 

[Ruth Mills]

From what I've also read, it would transpire that Fotolia probably don't use PicScout, so may be a safer bet than some of the other stock photo companies mentioned...

 

[ch4rli3]

I used istock Ruth, chose 3 images from there and purchased them

 

[Ruth Mills]

I used istock Ruth, chose 3 images from there and purchased them

My advice would be to make sure you keep a copy of all documentation regarding the purchasing of those images then, just in case there's any chance of possible confusion in the future. If you've got documentary evidence that you purchased the images for use on your web site, then that should keep the legal hounds at bay...

 

[ch4rli3]

Good Idea Ruth! I have kept the confirmation and in the terms and conditions it does say that they can be used for websites, as long as it is my website and not for use on someone elses!

 

[Ruth Mills]

Good Idea Ruth! I have kept the confirmation and in the terms and conditions it does say that they can be used for websites, as long as it is my website and not for use on someone elses!

Well done! In fact I'm going to make it a business procedure that all documentation relating to purchase of stock images gets properly archived, so it's easy to provide an audit trail showing that any images used were legitimately purchased for use on a particular site.