Warning! Moronic question. Can I use an image from the internet?

[Spidermama]

Apologies for being thick but ..... Am I allowed to reproduce images once they are on the internet? Does this mean they are in the public forum and can be reproduced or are they copyrighted?

Anyone?

No you can't. You have to check the individual copyright licenses.

On Flickr (for example), there's various different licenses you can select as the photographer (various creative commons licenses which means you can use them if you give credit and don't earn any money off them and such like ... ranging to full rights reserved which all mine are).

That said, I'm always flattered if someone wants to use a photo of mine for personal non-profit use (in a school report, for example) as long as they've asked permission.

Thanks GeorginaA.

All that said, image theft is rife... What are you wanting to use the image for?

Nope, but you can grab them off Google images very easily, and everyone I know does.

It depends on your usage as to how well you can get away with it to be honest.

For personal, non-published use (as in a screensaver or desktop picture) then (although legally flimsy) I kind of count that as morally fine. After all, technically it's not much different to bookmarking the site and going to look at the image regularly.

Taking images for your own website is a real problem - it's common courtesy at the very least to ask permission and to link back to the copyright owner.

Anything where you might possibly get any money for it is in very dodgy legal territory indeed. Plus there's so many extremely cheap images out there on stock photography sites (royalty free images for around 10-20p each usually) that there's really no excuse for it.

It's for a flyer so I think I'd be on the dodgy legal ground you described Georgie. Am making alternative arrangements. Thanks for sharing your knowlege. Much appreciated.

No probs