Use images for free, rather than paying for stock photography by incorporating Creative Commons (CC) licensed images into articles. One of the most time consuming things about blogging and writing articles is creating or finding images to accompany the text. And website owners certainly don’t want to be sued in a copyright violation because they used images found on the internet without the image owner’s permission.
One might ask, “Why in the world would photographers let others use their images for free?” Answer: Photographers could get greatly increased exposure to their work since the Creative Commons license requires identification and link backs to the creator. Ultimately, greater exposure could lead to greater income.
How does one locate images placed under the CC license?
Use Flickr – it’s a treasure trove of CC images and the search function is excellent.
Attribution For Creative Commons Images
The sailboat image included in this article is an example of how to use the CC license and properly attribute the image to the creator. In this case, I’m using one of my own photographs that I placed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike license on Flickr. This particular license allows others to use my image and make changes to it, but they cannot legally sell it. In this article I have satisfied the requirements of the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license by:
- Identifying and linking to the name of the work
- Identifying and linking to the creator of the work
- Identifying and linking to the license of the work
I did not modify this work so there is no need to indicate any changes.
More information about using Creative Commons licensed photographs can be found on the CC website.
Note: This article is not legal advice.