The Usability of Using Images

You need a picture of an ice cream cone for a project. You hop on the Internet and Google Image search "ice cream cone". Thousands of results show up some good, some not so good. You click the options button at the top of your page and choose "Large Images". Soon enough you've found the perfect picture at the perfect resolution. You right click the image and save it to your computer. You think to yourself that this photo must not have a copyright or else I wouldn't be able to download it. Wrong.

One of the most common and most costly mistakes of designing is the use of photos from the Internet. As the scenario above illustrates, a lot of people think because you can download it from the Internet there's no copyright on it. If you use a copyrighted photo for a design and the copyright owner finds out and puts a lawsuit against you, you'll be looking at thousands and perhaps millions of dollars, depending on the case, of fines you will have to pay. Some copyright lawsuits could even send you to jail.

You might think that you can use any picture because we're all in school and we're using it for educational purposes. This is true, but as soon as you graduate that is no longer the case. It's good to get into the habit of using non-copyrighted and non-protected photos now while we're in school, so that when we venture out into the real world we'll be able to research non-copyrighted photos to deliver results to our future employers.

I caution the use of any photo downloaded from Google. www.morguefile.com and www.deviantart.com  have some great non-copyrighted photography.