Keep your blog out of copyright hot water

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so its not surprising that, on the web, the short-attention spam of your blog readers will be benefited by added imagery. The talented among us, such as So not a princess can create the original artwork to enhance their blog postings, however for those of us not blessed with such creative talent we may grab the digital camera in the hope of capturing something that will add to the blog post. Of course, we all know its super easy to cut and paste a great image we've found somewhere on the web, and besides what is the chance of getting caught anyway?

If this sounds like you, then you should spend some time getting to know about the Creative Commons (CC). In a nutshell, the Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to provides access to copyright free imagery that you can share, remix and reuse. Its underlying principal is to provide access to copyright free works. The aim of this access is to foster a culture of sharing, and facilitate creative and collaborative environments.

Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic: Wadem

The CC provides a search function that accesses material from a number of specified places. Once you have located the image that you require, simply check its terms of use, most often this is simply to attribute the creators name to the material when reused.

There is an astounding amount of resources available and most of the time I am able to locate images that I need. If not I also check out, the Wikimedia Commons which is another place where you can find access to material with expired copyright and other content that is available to use freely.

So next time when you think about lifting that image from someone else's website, why not check out the images you can legally and freely use. You might even sleep better at night!