How to get free images for my digital publications

[fatimahislam]

Surely, more than once you have downloaded a photo from Google Images for a post on your blog, a promotion on social networks or for any of the sections of your website. But you may not have stopped to think about the intellectual property rights of these photos.

If they are on the internet they are free, right?
The truth is that no, although we always think that what is on the Internet is free, we cannot appropriate an image that is not ours. With the arrival of digitalisation, new ways of working have appeared, but this does not mean that there are no rules to follow, just as we would do with any other work. European legislation itself has recently reinforced this aspect so that platforms such as YouTube or Facebook act as filters so that users do not violate property rights in their digital publications. Now authors can report fraudulent use of their work on websites that have not received their authorisation.

How do I know if I am complying with the law?
It is very likely that if you have downloaded the photographs directly from your preferred search engine you are infringing the Intellectual Property Law. But don't worry! This does not mean that you can no longer Lebanon telegram data use this great tool or that all the work done is illegal. Since search engines, in their search options, allow you to differentiate those photographs by the rights or licenses of use . This means that there is content that you can use freely, or failing that, respect some conditions that are required for its use. What is known as a Creative Commons license.

What are Creative Commons licenses?
The images you can find online are usually linked to the intellectual property of the authors. But in many cases these authors grant the reproduction rights under licenses called Creative Commons (CC). In Spanish, “Bienes Comunes Creativos” (Creative Commons Goods), which facilitates the use and dissemination of creativity. Therefore, much of the audiovisual material available today on the Internet may be under this license.
The authors make their creations freely available on the Internet for an altruistic concept of spreading culture or, as in many cases, they seek recognition. Creative Commons licenses are composed of:

• Attribution (BY), requires reference to the original author.
• Share Alike (SA), allows derivative works under the same or similar license
• Non-Commercial (NC), the work can be used for commercial purposes.
• No Derivative Works (ND), does not allow modifying the work in any way.

So how can I search for these free images?
We can continue using Google , accessing tools in the search engine to refine our search. This allows us to choose the size (something that has been limited in recent times), the color range (predominantly red, for example) and of course, the right of use.
But without a doubt, the best solution is to use image banks , specific pages that offer photographs, videos and even audios. In them you can find free images that are made available to subscribers or unregistered users. There are also plans to obtain a large volume of photographs and other high-quality content at affordable prices.
The constant use of free content can make us run the risk of having to reuse the same photographic material more than once or of not differentiating our creativity from that of the competition. For this reason, it is advisable to have several reference image banks.