Why can’t I just use images I find on other websites?
There are a couple of reasons. First, it is illegal to do so in almost every country in the world. Your country might not make a big deal out of it, but chances are good your country signed either the Buenos Aires Convention, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works or the World Intellectual Property Organization Treaty .
What does all of that mean?
It means if you live in a country that signed one of those treaties, it is illegal for you to use someone else’s work without their permission. You could be fined, or the owner of the image could file a lawsuit against you seeking financial damages. (They could take your house, car or bank account.)
Why does everyone on Steemit make such a big deal out of using a photo?
Because you are also hurting Steemit when you use a photo you do not have a right to use. Search engines like Google, Bing and all the others, have algorithms that determine where a page ranks in the search engine. If Steemit becomes known as a place where people can plagiarize, Steemit pages can be blocked or downgraded in the search engines. That hurts Steemit’s ability to get new members and it hurts every members chance to get additional people seeing their posts, which takes away from their earnings.
If the situation gets bad enough, the people you choose to take images from can sue Steemit seeking money from them. That hurts every single person on Steemit and literally takes money out of our pockets. Do you truly want to make every member of Steemit mad at you? How many upvotes do you think you would get if you did?
How am I supposed to get photos?
The best option is to take them yourself. It is better to use a photo you took on your cell phone than to use an image you stole from someone else’s site.
Below are some links to sites where you can get images that are acceptable for use on your blog. You want to look for images that are “CC0 Creative Commons. Free for commercial use. No attribution required.”
- pixabay.com – this is one of the biggest site with a wide range of images. I’d guess about 98% of the images I don’t take myself or use from my accumulated stock come from Pixabay.
- pexels.com – They have a good amount of images and seem to be growing.
- publicdomainpictures.net – This one has some great photos but they go overboard with showing shutterstock images. Always make sure you are downloading from publicdomainpictures.net and not shutterstock.
- sitebuilderreport.com – A small number of photos available but many are nice photos.
- yeahstockphotos.com – Photos are good quality but they are listed by date so it is hard to find something you can use. There is a search button but I have never had it return a single item I searched for.
- isorepublic.com – A decent size collection divided into many categories. Plus, the search function works.
- unsplash.com – They have a fairly large selection of images from a wide range of categories.
- splitshire.com – I only recently found out about this site and haven’t had time to fully look at it yet, but it seems like a good place to find some photos.
- 1millionfreepictures.com – Seems to have a good assortment but the image quality seems a little low. They look a little blurred to me and I am vision impaired.
- vintage.com – If you need some antique images such as old advertisements, greeting cards and such, this is the place.
- gratisography.com – Seems to be a fairly decent collection at least partially categorized.
- pdpics.com – A good sized collection of public domain images.
- nos.twnsnd.co – A collection of older images from the public domain.
- pickupimage.com – Mainly landscape and animal photos but they come from around the world and seem to be high quality.
- publicdomainarchive.com – A collection of categorized images placed into the public domain.
- libreshot.com – A collection of the work of Martin Vorel who has released all the images into the public domain.
- reusableart.com – A large collection of antique art that is old enough to have public domain status.
- skitterphoto.com – A collection of photos from many different categories, all placed into the public domain by the photographers that took them.
- stocksnap.io – a categorized collection of photos in the public domain.
Important Note
ALWAYS check each site to see if they have changed their terms before getting additional photos from a site. They have the right to switch to requiring attribution at any time. They cannot change the terms on images you have already downloaded, but changes will apply to any future downloads.
Help yourself and everyone else, DON’T STEAL IMAGES!
Many people on Steemit are determined to stop people from stealing images and using them on Steemit. Many people, myself included, will not upvote posts where we know the image was taken from a website without permission or when no credit is given.
Many people will also downvote a post when it becomes known that you regularly steal images from other websites. This takes earnings out of your pocket. It is so easy to find images that are free to use and so easy to give credit to the site they come from, it really doesn't make sense for people to not do so. It makes it look like you don't care about the rights of others, so why should anyone care about you?
I hope you have found this information useful. Your upvote and resteem are always appreciated.