As the internet has evolved, so have blogs, and the unique and powerful writing format will continue to grow and change as technology continues to advance. And as a blogger, you are on the cutting edge of the new economy: you operate in an industry that didn’t exist at all two decades ago, and will doubtlessly be unrecognizable two decades in the future. But there is one thing you have to keep in mind while you experiment within the medium and help push blogging forward: the law. And cheap stock photos can help you stay legal.
As a blogger, images are incredibly important to your content, as no one online wants to read extensive text posts without getting some stimulating graphic accompaniment to go alongside all that information. But while it’s a little known fact, you can’t just use any images in your blog posts and still walk on the right side of legality. If you want to blog with lots of graphical content, and still conduct your business legally, cheap stock photography is probably your best option. Here’s why.
You Can’t Use “Google Images” In Your Blogging
When looking for a nice graphic, most bloggers will turn to Google Images first. But doing so puts you on the wrong side of the law for several reasons. First off, you can’t technically use images for your own devices without the permission of the artist that took them. Every photograph that is captured is the intellectual and creative property of the artist that captured it, and they have a right to determine what uses their property is lent to. As a blogger, if you grab images off of Google and use them without consulting the artists that took them, you could potentially be violating the copyrighted property of artists.
And it’s not just the images themselves that can get you into legal trouble: as a blogger, you also have to be aware of the content within those images. Just about every corporate logo and graphic in the world is trademarked, and if the images you use have a trademarked logo within them, you could be held accountable by the corporation that trademark belongs to. For example, if you are writing a blog post about Atlanta and the picture you grab off of Google Images has Coca-cola World in the background, you’ve now violated the trademarked logo of one of the biggest corporations in the world.
If you grab all of the graphics you use off of Google Images, both of these legal issues can quickly rear their ugly heads. While you might get away with using images from Google for a while, when your blog gets more successful and gets more views, artists and corporations may take notice. And then all it will take is one lawsuit to shut your whole site down and destroy your blogging career. If you want to avoid these potential disasters and stay on the right side of the law, cheap stock photography can help.
Cheap Stock Photos Are Legal for Blogger to Use
When you purchase a photo from a cheap stock image vendor, you are sold a guarantee that the image you have purchased is legal to use. First off, stock photo vendors purchase usage rights from stock photographers, so you aren’t violating the creative or intellectual property rights of anyone who took a photo. Second, models that appear in stock photos all sign releases as well, so you won’t be in trouble with your photo’s subject. And finally, stock photo vendors make sure that there are no trademark violations of logos or corporate property in their images either, so you won’t be offending a major corporation like Coca-cola.
If there ever are any legal issues with a stock photo that you download and use in your bloggins, the vendor will actually assume liability instead of you. As long as you are following the terms of use that you downloaded the image under, every stock photo you use in your blogging from a cheap stock photo vendor won’t get you in trouble.
It’s Cheaper To Invest In Cheap Stock Photos Now Than Lawyers Later
If you look around for the best deals, you can get cheap stock imagery for pennies or dollars per picture. As a blogger, any extra expenses can cut into your margins, and it may feel like a big waste of money to invest in stock photos when there are so many images online that you can illegally use for free.
But think about it as an investment. You could spend dollars on legal to use cheap stock photos now, or you could spend thousands or hundreds of thousands in legal fees down the line if your blog gets successful while you have used imagery illegally. If you really want to succeed in the industry and stay on the right side of the law, the decision to use cheap stock photography to protect yourself legally is a no brainer.
