I never even gave it a second thought …. !
And I suspect many others don’t either.
When I place a post here on my blog, naturally I want a cutie little image of something to go alongside my post. Cos I totally understand that you probably don’t want to be staring at my criminally attractive mugshot more than a micro-second or two.
So where do I go to get an image?
Of course …. I search on my term in Google, click on images, and say “oooh that’s a nice one. I’ll have that ! ”
And so it goes. Before you can say “Give us a slag out yer billy-can me old mucker”, the image is “saved-as” and safely installed as a pretty little thumbnail accompanying your latest post.
But did you realise that in doing that, you’re leaving your empires flagship, and yourself, wide open to legal action.
I just read a great post from Clive Hitchcock that reminded me of this situation. and the stupid thing is that, of course, I already knew this. But seriously, I am not a dishonest person, and I can’t explain why I forgot. I mean, I don’t nick tins of salmon from the local supermarket or anything like that!
I honestly can’t explain why I suddenly thought these were there for the taking.
But they aren’t.
And as soon as I read Clive’s post, I opened an account with fotolia, cos they are pretty darned cheap, and got myself some legal images. Luckily I’ve only done a handful of posts so far, – I’d have been there all blinking day otherwise.
But now I’m legal. Should I even be admitting that on air??
And if it’s something you’ve overlooked too, then this can serve as a timely reminder to you also.
You wouldn’t want all your hard work to end up with legal action and a sizeable fine – or worse, a stint of striped sunshine – now would you?
You guys rock !
To your incredible online success….
