I worked on this project where I helped a very nice and very old lady, create a blog about cats.
She did not want to pay to license images, one of the images she used was ” borrowed” from another Cat blog which was in LOCATED IN FRANCE. (That blog barely had any traffic )
So, she insisted that I use the image “She borrowed” from the French blog.
So being the idiot that I am. I accepted.
Sure enough, several months later, I get a request for payment from a French company, claiming I owe them 350 dollars. (To pay for the USUAGE of the image we had been using on the cat blog.
I contact the old lady and let her know. She insists that this firm is in France . Nothing js going to come out of it. Because she went on , on how the French can’t do anything.
Fast forward , a couple of month later, now an American Law firm, contracted by the French law firm contacts me and demands a payment for $2500 + $1300 = $3800.
Number 1: You would be so surprised on how fast your hosting provider will give the authorities your information when it comes to the slightest legal matter.
Number 2: The old lady, turned on me and said I was responsible, but since I had documentation, I took her to court and won.
Number 3: Now I pay 90 dollars for Adobe Stock Images + 70 or so for their cloud package which allows you to license most of their products.
Number4. With Reverse Eye and a dozens of other Similar apps, it only takes milliseconds to search the entire web for other copies of an image being used around the world.
NEVER STEAL IMAGES- Even for sites that don’t even get 50 monthly visitors- MEOW🐈
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Glad to hear that it was a happy ending for you, but quite surprised that you didn’t know that you can’t steal images from other sites.
If clients don’t want to pay for images, I usually just let them choose from images on Pexels or Unsplash.
Note: no need to pay monthly if you don’t use the images. There are good stock images websites with a large collection of images out of copyrights and free to use. Well, we must tag the authors or type their names wherever we see fit in the work, but a blog about cats can easily have a disclaimer on the about page with references to the original authors of said free images. Freepik, for example.
If you encounter this again where a client want’s to use images they “Borrowed”, have them produce a Letter of Authorization from the holder of the image, otherwise it’s a no-go
Always have a clause in your contract stating that the client is responsible for all content.
Never ‘borrow’ from ‘google’.
🍻
Well, time to redo all of the images on my blog which barely anyone visits to make sure they are all ones I made. Won’t be as good as the ones I have there now but better than being sued.
I have heard of a company, Pix something, they run a bit of a racket scaring people into paying a lot more money than they would have paid for the actual rights to use the picture. They use bots to find where photos from sites like AP are being used.
As the web designer, it’s on you to let the client know that you won’t be doing anything illegal for them, no matter how small. As you can see, they came after you, not her.
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I take images super serious because it can put you out of business.
I have a clause in all my client contracts stating that the client guarantees they own images or have the rights to use images they give me. And it also states they agree to pay to defend my company for any lawsuit for copyright infringement and cover any resulting damages.
Gotta protect yourself. I also use ACF to create custom fields in my image library specifically for licensing information for each image. It’s extra work but worth it.
https://wordpress.org/photos/
Free, high quality, images that you can use with no license requirements. New images added every day.
What part of “don’t steal” don’t people understand?
Catsue curry