Guide to Setting Up a Bridal Accessories Business in the UK
Blogging Images: The Importance of Asking Permission and Crediting Properly!
Image Credit: MY FABULOUS LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY
Last week I wrote a post about the mistakes we have made and the lessons we have learned as new bloggers. It was an extremely cathartic moment as I was able to look back and note all the things we had achieved. Trust me when I say I know that we are nowhere near being perfect however I don’t think we ever will be. There are no set rules for blogging just hard core advice given from others that have been there and got the tshirt – otherwise known as blogging etiquette. What works for some might not work for others and with the internet becoming more and more impersonal the rules are continuously changing.
You might be thinking what exactly qualifies us to give advice to new bloggers when we are fairly new ourselves however my argument would be that I would be way more inclined to listen to the advice of someone that has been there and done that first hand. As I have said before every mistake is a lesson learned…right?
Image Credit: MY FABULOUS LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY
This week I want to talk about something that has been playing on my mind for a few weeks now and that is the subject of photography, crediting and asking permission.
One of the things we have been most proud of since we started blogging has been our Wednesday Wedding Inspiration feature. We love being able to turn the most unusual things into inspiration such as My Little Pony, Sci Fi, the Zoo…the list is endless.
Our inspiration boards were the result of endless searching on photography sharing sites such as Pinterest and Wedding Gawker. We linked back to where we had found the images, so as to not offend the source from which they were found – very often other wedding blogs.
Image Credit: MY FABULOUS LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY
When I look back on it now I honestly can’t believe we didn’t have a light bulb moment and realise we were missing one vital link. Actually two vital links! Have you spotted what they are yet? Notice I said we were only linking back to the Pinterest board? We weren’t even crediting the source properly. We were also missing the most important part which was asking permission and crediting the photographer – the very person that had put all their hard work into creating this wonderful image, which we wistfully used without a second thought.
What is the problem with that you might ask? Well a couple of things actually? We were actually breaking the law by infringing copyright. That’s right, these photographers could have literally taken us to court. If breaking the law had not scared us enough, we then learned that this was affecting what a lot of other photographers thought of us and believe me it wasn’t good. The relationships we were trying so hard to build were already failing because we were not showing our support of all these wonderful photographers by asking their permission and at the very least crediting them correctly.
It is also important to remember that not all photographers are ok with you sharing their images. Think about it? A wedding is an extremely personal day to any couple, more often or not couples are more than happy to share their day but some might not? If you are sharing a wedding without asking permission, how do you know if it is ok with couple? You don’t so here you are not only infringing copyright laws but also the privacy of the couple.
Image Credit: MY FABULOUS LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY
We were mortified and we pulled up on it in the most public way via social media, our huge flaw was being laid bare for everyone to see. We were mortified and deeply upset as we had put so much work into ensuring the emphasis of our blog was on building reader and supplier relationships. How could we have been so innocently ignorant? Not only that, if we had thought to email every single photographer and ask their permission to use the image we could have been making some extremely valuable relationships, this is something we had hugely missed out on.
You know what it happens; don’t beat yourself up about it. Mistakes are made but what is most important is that you recognise them and learn from them. I now have the gruelling job of going through every inspiration board that we have used and correctly crediting them, a small price to pay when you think that we could have actually been sued!
Image Credit: MY FABULOUS LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY
So here is a checklist of everything you need to make sure of, before you use someone else’s image:
- Find out the name of the photographer
- Ask their permission (email is probably the quickest and most efficient way as photographers are usually very busy!)
- Use this format: “Image Credit: PHOTOGRAPHER/ BUSINESS NAME found via WEBSITE“
- Link back to the photographer and website.
Image Credit: MY FABULOUS LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY
What happens if you can’t find the owner of the image?
Once our mistake was pointed out to us we received a lot of emails and comments from helpful souls on how to find the original owner of an image. We were told about Google Image search which works in a similar way to Google, in that you paste the image or URL and the results will show everywhere the image has been used online.
If after using this search you still cannot find the original owner of the image then don’t use it. It is better to be safe than sorry!
For more help on this topic head over to Rock N Roll Bride’s Green room where she wrote an in depth discussion on this very topic which we have since found extremely helpful!
Image Credit: MY FABULOUS LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY
So tell me how have you been affected by this subject? What mistakes have you made? Let us make this an open community where we can all lay our issues bare and hopefully help one another.
Whilst we are at it, let us give some bespoke love to Becky joiner of My Fabulous Life Photography and Gina her wonderful model for allowing us to use these images to illustrate this post. If it wasn’t for them this post would be so pretty!
Much Bespoke Love
Emily x
Yay! My face! 🙂 had great fun with Becky Joiner doing this shoot
We were absolutely thrilled to be able to feature you fabulous shoot Gina! Thank you so much!
Whilst I COMPLETELY agree that photographers SHOULD be credited on blogs, particularly in featured posts where a blogger may be showcasing a series of photos by a photographer for example, and in no way would I think about going to another blog or website and pinching images of other weddings to use for my own blog, especially with out credit or asking first. BUT I do think there is a huge grey area when it comes to Pinterest boards. I myself create ‘moodboards’ for inspiration on some subjects I cover on my blog, weddings and fashion, and after reading this and highlighting the potential issues, I will be sure to look a bit deeper in to where the images came from originally to TRY and credit where possible, I do think some blame has to lie with Pinterest. When creating my own moodboards, I, also, was crediting the source and linking back to my relevant Pinterest board, and therefore if the images have been pinned from another source or blog, it would link back to the original website, which to me, is a positive. The problem lies where there are hundreds of images on there that have no credit, no link or anything. Therefore isn’t Pinterest in the wrong? Aren’t all these users of pinterest ‘stealing’ images to pin to their own pinboards? Surely there is something within the T&Cs of pinterest that images pinned here are at the owners risk or something? But then any one can use the ‘pin’ button to pin anything, so technically that is all infringing on copyright before it even reaches my blog mood board?!
I do think photographers should be given the credit they deserve for the photos they have worked hard for, but I also think there needs to be some sort of clearer usage policy when it comes to Pinterest. I mean I love the site and it forms the basis of a lot of ideas for my blog posts, I also find it helps me find new and interesting blogs and business so it is also a valuable tool for advertising. But perhaps its worth looking at it the other way around, if the general public are going to continue to pin images, which I have no doubt will continue to grow, then perhaps togs need to start looking at ways to make sure their images link back to their site or by maybe disabling the right click so images can’t be copied or pinned, or perhaps putting a logo or watermark on – which I do actually hate to see but I think we all need to be moving with the times and as the internet grows I think this is all going to become a bigger problem and I don’t think all the blame can lie with the bloggers??
I’d be interested to know other thoughts on the matter and I guess for now it is just a case of doing what you can to find and use images where you are able to give full credit and therefore start to build good relationships.
Thanks Emily for raising such a valid point when it comes to the grey areas of using Pinterest. I had to go searching for them I but did find Pinterests T&C’s very interesting and very helpful so here is what I found:
1.) Content can only be added to Pinterest with the owners permission, this means if you have a ‘Pin It’ button on your blog, gallery etc you are effectively giving permission. However if this is not the case and you find your content on Pinterest with your permission you have every right to take matters further. This would usually include filing a copyright complaint form. Pinterest would then look into the complaint and if your complaint was upheld the content would be removed and the offender would be informed. If the offender is found to continuously infringe copyright they would be banned from using Pinterest and would have to deal with any legal implications.
2.)Once content is on Pinterest it is subject to a ‘broad rights to use content’ license, which allows content to be ‘Repinned’ whether content has been uploaded with or without permission. However Pinterest clearly states if anyone is found to be infringing copyright they will have to deal with the implications.
3.) This does not mean the owner gives up ownership rights it just means content can be repinned on Pinterest but that does not mean it can be used elsewhere. So if like myself and Emily you want to use images to create mood boards you must ask the owners permission before you use an image.
I do not claim to know everything about copyright and I do ask that if anyone knows better or believes I have given incorrect information I would love to hear from you.
In the meantime I hope this helps Emily and I am sorry you to were confused by the whole crediting issue you are not alone 🙂
Much Bespoke Love
Emily x
That is interesting indeed! Although when I first signed up Pinterest gave me a
‘Button’ to add to my bookmark bar to be able to pin pretty much any image from any site without informing of the T&Cs so there are probably 1000s+ of images on there that have been pinned from sources that have no idea!
So yes agreed if you want to stay out of trouble as a blogger the answer is to make sure your covered by crediting any images used and like you said if you can’t find the source of tog then don’t use them.
From a photographers point of view though, if they don’t want their images to be pinned without consent then it’s their job to do what they can to not allow images to be copied and pinned from their site, to limit what is shared as I’m sure there are many newbie bloggers out there just like us that have never seen the T&Cs and are happily pinning away because they think it is ok to do so!
Great post though and good research!
Here’a to a lesson learned!
“From a photographers point of view though, if they don’t want their images to be pinned without consent then it’s their job to do what they can to not allow images to be copied and pinned from their site, to limit what is shared as I’m sure there are many newbie bloggers out there just like us that have never seen the T&Cs and are happily pinning away because they think it is ok to do so!”
I disagree, it’s not the photographers job to police their own work. There is a copyright law protecting them. It’s up to the Blogger’s to know the law. And in my experience even when the right-click is disabled, some people still use a screen grab to lift the image.
You know what, I think there are so many bloggers who can admit having made the same mistake but probably choose not to. I think it’s really brave of you to admit it and at least you’ve learnt from your mistakes!
As a photographer, it’s incredibly nerve-wracking putting my work out there on the web because I have no real way of knowing where it’s going to end up or how it’s going to be used by others. I can only trust that people like yourselves will credit my work appropriately!
A great post and, as a new follower to the blog, one that will keep me reading. Thank you!
Thanks Sarah, it certainly was a big lesson learned and I am sure there will be many more along the way 🙂
I can understand from photographers point of view how worried you must be about your work being misused. I would be really interested on your thoughts about Pinterest and how it is used?
xxx
I would also recommend that you link back to the original post that the image came from and not the homepage. I know lots of people do this when pinning and it is terribly frustrating for someone trying to find an original source.
It is my image use policy that any borrowing of my image must include my blog name in the anchor text and link to the post NOT the homepage.
Very helpful post – this is definitely something that is confusing to most people – especially because of sites like Pinterest (as much as I love it). I especially loved your checklist! Thank you.