May 4th - 2003

Protect your image

If you have a website for your business or you are planning on creating one, give careful consideration to the “images” you portray.

If you have a website for your business or you are planning on creating one, give careful consideration to the “images” you portray. One of the best reasons to have a website is the ease with which you can convey information to your clients attractively and graphically. However, there are copyright laws which govern image use on the Internet and lawsuits have been brought up against people who have stolen copyright images and used them on their own sites.

There are five exclusive rights given to copyright owners under the Copyright Act and you could be guilty of copyright infringement if you violate one of them.

These rights include: the right to prevent others from reproducing (or copying) a work, publicly displaying a work, or distributing a work. When creating your web page, take care not to copy the work of others. If you use an Internet provider be sure they are reputable -- they too can be found liable of copyright infringement.

Here are some web page image dos and don’ts for selecting images for your web page from Bitlaw (www.bitlaw.com) and Ryerson University’s Website Basics: (www.ryerson.ca/dmp/courses/adding_graphics/copyright.html )

DO

  • Create original images using drawing and painting programs. It’s best to create images from scratch rather than from someone else's creation. Even if an image is significantly altered, the new image could still infringe upon the copyright in the first image by being a derivative work.
  • Use clip-art libraries. Licensed images can be found in the clip-art files provided with your software. Incorporating images from clip-art libraries on your web page does not violate copyright law since these images are licensed to the purchaser for this purpose. You must be careful to obey the terms of all applicable license agreements to avoid liability. For example, the license may not allow you to alter the images in any significant way.
  • Use free images off the Internet…with caution. Some web sites provide images that are for use by others. These images may be used in a web page, as long as the terms proposed by the image creator are followed. Usually, these sites only require that some type of credit is given to the author, including a link back to the author's site. There is the possibility, however, that the images were misappropriated at some point and were not original creations of the alleged author. In these cases, use of the images may infringe the copyright rights of the original author. DON’T
  • Take images from third-parties. The simple rule is, "Don't steal someone else's images." The moment an original image is fixed on a hard drive for the first time, it is protected by copyright. Any unauthorized copying of a protected image is an infringement of the creator's copyright, unless the use falls within one of the limited exceptions to the copyright law, such as "fair use." In most cases, it is unlikely that the incorporation of an image into a commercial web-site would be considered a fair use.

The best rule of thumb for website images is to use entirely your own material – images and text -- for your website. Most often you can find out if the image you want is copyrighted, but even if it doesn't explicitly say, you should assume that it is. If the site advertises free images, make sure you find out if there are exceptions, ie: only for non-commercial use. Here is an example of a typical disclaimer found on a free images site. This one is from the Lycos Image Gallery (http://info.lycos.com/legal/legal.asp#Gallery)

“These are copyrighted photographs and may be subject to certain other legal rights. You may utilize each photograph for personal (not commercial) use only, and only in a printed or digitized literary work as a news report or editorial. You may not create derivative works from a photograph, display or distribute copies of it, publish it, use it in a performance, modify it in any manner except size, or, if the particular photograph relates to identifiable persons or entities, you may not use it in a manner which suggests their association with or endorsement of any product, service, opinion or cause. For information on commercial use permissions call 1-800-741-8570.”

If in doubt about using a specific image, it’s best to consult a lawyer familiar with all matters of intellectual property rights.

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