# Using Pictures in my Blog - Copyright question



## yuwmic (May 2, 2008)

for my tshirt blog, am i allowed to write my own content, but use google images in my post?

let's say i write about my visit to paris, can i google eiffel tower and use a picture in my post?

What about royalty-free images like from gettyimages, what does that mean?

thanks


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

yuwmic said:


> for my tshirt blog, am i allowed to write my own content, but use google images in my post?
> 
> let's say i write about my visit to paris, can i google eiffel tower and use a picture in my post?
> 
> ...


Generally, you would need to get permission from the person that owns the rights to the photos.

Google images is just a search engine. Google doesn't own the rights to any of the images you find there, and they can't pass on any usage rights to you.

It's just like the regular Google search. Just because you find a cool article in the regular Google search, doesn't meant that the owner of the article will allow you to copy it to your website.

You'll have to look into the usage for each image you find. 

Some are allowed to be used as long as you give credit (as are a lot of the images at flickr.com), some cannot be republished, some can be republished without credit, some you just have to ask.

Royalty Free means that once you buy a license to use the image, you don't have to pay ongoing royalties for the continued usage of the image. 

Some places (like Cartoon strips) may want you to pay "royalties" for using their image based on how many times you use it or how many times it will be seen. 

Royalty free is like a "flat rate" usage fee for using an image. Even those images have usage restrictions that you will have to read and understand before using.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

When you say "t-shirt blog" is it for your t-shirt company, or _about_ t-shirts? Because the other thing to bear in mind is that reproducing a work for the purpose of commentary or review could fit within fair use. In other words if you want to review the latest shirt printed by Threadless you can include an image of it without obtaining their permission. But if someone wanted to use the same image in a different context (background of their website for example) it wouldn't be legal.

With something like an Eiffel tower photo you wouldn't be critiquing the actual photographer's work, just talking about the tower/France. Fair use wouldn't apply. Although with something as photographed as the Eiffel tower it wouldn't be difficult to find a public domain image that you could use.

So no, you can't use whatever you find in Google. But as a quasi-journalist there _might_ be a _few_ things you can use that wouldn't otherwise be available.


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