If your company is considering starting up a blog, please allow us to warn you about the massive jar of Advil you will need to deal with one seemingly simple issue: images.
Yes, dealing with images — photos, pictures, whatever you want to call them — can be surprisingly frustrating for the uninitiated. The main issue is copyrights to those images, and how relatively easy it is for the owners of those images to see who’s using them without permission. Naugh-ty naugh-ty!
Remember that arcane disclaimer (as if there are any other kind) you used to hear all the time during baseball games on TV? “Any rebroadcast, reproduction, or other use of the pictures and accounts of this game without the express written consent of Major League Baseball is prohibited.” Yeah, it’s pretty much like that—only more complicated.
To be able to use this logo, we had to send Major League Baseball two cases of toner and a writer to be named later.
Knowing this quandary haunts many a blogger, a little while ago we created a valuable resource for finding free stock photos: The Ultimate Guide to Finding Free Stock Photos. Bookmark that page why dontcha?!
But we’re here to tell you there’s even more good news on the photo front. Getty Images, the world’s largest supplier of stock images, has announced it’s making some 35 million of its images virtually free to share. The catch? It has to be for noncommercial use. The other catch? Each image will include a Getty photo credit and will be linked to Getty’s website, where viewers can license the picture if they so desire.
It’s a nice development for all of the recreational bloggers out there who would rather not get a demand for a $500 payment from Getty for using its picture of a hamster without permission. But what about a company blog? Does that count as “noncommercial use”?
The most you wanna pay for something like this is $200. $250 tops.
While we’re no Matlock when it comes to legal matters, we do know how to cut and paste pretty good from Getty’s new terms of service:
“You may only use embedded Getty Images Content for editorial purposes (meaning relating to events that are newsworthy or of public interest). Embedded Getty Images Content may not be used: (a) for any commercial purpose (for example, in advertising, promotions or merchandising) or to suggest endorsement or sponsorship; (b) in violation of any stated restriction; (c) in a defamatory, pornographic or otherwise unlawful manner; or (d) outside of the context of the Embedded Viewer.”
To us, that sounds like working a Getty image of a ham sandwich into a furniture store’s blog post about ‘The 7 Weirdest Items Found in a Sofa’ would be legit. But we’re looking into it, just to make sure.
We suggest you do the same.