Today, with the help of technology, one can earn money from blogging and content writing and share their experience and knowledge with others openly. To make the content attractive and engaging, images and videos are uploaded. Images have copyrights, and misuse of such images leads to legal and financial issues. So, it is necessary for users to know how to give copyright credit for images and attribute images properly. The article also lists the top 5 image resources for free and royalty-free images.
Table of Contents
1. What Is Copyright?
Copyright is a method to protect the author’s original work, such as authorship, images, videos, literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and other different works. Copyright protection is given by the government of the US irrespective of the Nationality of the author. This form of Copyright protection is given to both published and unpublished work.
It is not possible all the time to do every work by ourselves. One has to use other’s work like images, videos, and materials. Otherwise, work is considered illegal, and the owner has a right to file a lawsuit under the copyright infringement law.
2. Understanding Copyright Law
The copyright infringement law was introduced by the US government, under which the owner possesses some rights over his work and can take legal action against the person who exploits his work. The owner owns the copyright on his profession when he registers his work in the copyright registration office.
It protects the identity of the owner and his contribution. Some of the examples of copyright work are creating books, e-books, materials, documents, movies, images, videos, songs, and so on. These are one form of expression of ideas on the internet.
With the copyright, owners can recreate multiple versions of their work, distribute copies of work to make money, get recognition, and even sell the work to other parties. However, there are ways to use copyrighted work by giving Copyright credit to the owner of the work.
3. Copyright Registration
The owner can avail of all the benefits of copyright only when his work is in the records of the copyright register. The owner gets some legal rights over his work and can protect his work from getting pirated. Though copyright registration does not guarantee piracy of work, the owner can take action and get compensation.
To register their original art, the owner has to fill out a copyright form that includes all the details of the profession and its purpose. He needs to pay an amount of money and submit the form along with copies of proof. Copyright work expires after 70 years from the date of its registration.
According to the law, the owner of the work has exclusive rights to his work, and he can reproduce, display or charge a license. The law protects the creator’s work up to 70 years of creation. Creators can also make their work available for free under the public domain. The public domain also has expired license work that is free to reuse.
Creative Commons licensing is a popular license that allows users to use others’ work by crediting them in a proper manner. It helps both the creator and the user. Crediting images is one of the ways to build trust on the internet. Failing to give credit will not only cause legal issues but also damage the reputation in the market.
3.1. Benefits Of Copyright Registration
- Copyright work ensures the security of work from illegal use under copyright infringement law.
- The losses that occur due to piracy diminish.
- The owner can earn money from his work by distributing his copies of work to different parties.
- They can get a name and fame when they get compensation.
4. Copyright Credit
A copyright credit is a process of using someone’s work legally and ethically. In this process, the person who wants to use the copyrighted work needs to get permission from the owner and then use it in his work to avoid a lawsuit. Before using his work, sign a written agreement with the owner. For instance, if you want to use a copyrighted image, then you need to give a copyright credit by inserting © (Copyright symbol) after the image along with the name of the author or a link to the source.
Some of the ways to get the copyright symbol are:
- In Windows, press “Alt +0169” to get the copyright symbol,
- In MS Word, go to the insert tab, where you can find various symbols in the symbols tab, and click on the copyright symbol.
- Mac users can press “Option +G” to get a copyright symbol.
4.1. Steps To Get The Permission Of The Owner
- Write a request letter to the owner of the copyrighted image describing the purpose of using his image.
- Include the number of copies needed by you and other details of your work.
- Inform him about the usage of his image, such as if you modify the image or recreate another image.
- Request him to transmit the image in the format you want, like a scanned image or printed or transparent image.
- Mention the reward you give him in return, such as the percentage of profit to make the deal a win-win.
- Use only email communication as it can be used as proof if anything goes wrong in the future.
- The agreement must include all the terms and conditions, contact details of both parties and other necessary information.
5. How To Give Copyright Credit For Images With Examples?
Different types of image licenses of different attribution formats. The general format of image attribution is
Image by [creator name] via [Source], used under [License]
Let’s break down the format:
- Image is the title of the image that is used to reference
- The creator’s name is the name of the owner of the image. If the owner’s name is not available then use the agency name from where the image is taken.
- The source is the website name from where the image is downloaded.
- License is the type of license under which the image is used, such as a public domain or Creative Commons license.
Licenses And Crediting Format Example
- Creative Commons (CC BY): Image by Alex under Unsplash, used under CC BY 4.0
- Public Domain image: Image Courtesy of Pixels, Public domain
- Commercial License: Image by John Smith, purchased from Shutterstock
6. Free Online Image Resources
There are many online resources are present that have stock of public domain images, which can be used by other users without the fear of copyright infringement. There is no need to get permission or give copyright credits to the photos. Some of such sites are
Unsplash
Unsplash is one of the popular platforms that provides free and high-resolution images and illustrations to its users. It has over 6 million photos and illustrations contributed by its contributor community. This site reserves the license to allow its users to use images. This site further showcases the graphic design work of other users.
Pexels
Pexels is another top platform that lists over 3 million free stock images and videos that can be used without attribution. It is also an authorized site that allows its users to download and modify the images as per their requirements. It also has a community of contributors who share photos and videos.
Pixabay
Pixabay is the most popular site that has more than 5 million free images, videos, illustrations, music, GIFs, vectors, and sound effects that help bloggers, professionals, and writers make their work effective. This is an authorized site under Creative Common Zero (CCO). Users can use images from this site without taking any permission or giving any credit to the owner.
Canva
Canava is a graphic designing and visual communication tool that provides free images and also allows users to convert the images into custom graphics. It allows creators and designers to design and publish anything and anywhere. The platform has a vast collection of images, templates for presentations, flyers, banners, whiteboards, resumes, websites, graphics, and so on.
Burst
Bust is powered by Shopify, which has thousands of free and royalty-free images categorized into different entities. Royalty-free images are those images that should be purchased once from the owner and used multiple times. No attribution is required to use the images from Burst, but is good practice to give credit to creators as a token of encouragement.
7. Conclusion
Giving copyright credits is essential to create ethical content and build trust and credibility with users. Even Google made it easy to search images that are set under different categories like reuse images, not licensed images, for commercial use, modifiable images, and so on. These tools and techniques protect the owners as well as the users from legal lawsuits.
Following the proper image attribution described above will help to avoid legal issues while using copyrighted images. The online resources listed above give access to public domain images to bloggers and writers and make their content free from piracy.