Roundups are posts that allow you to put together a list, whether it’s great recipes, tutorials, or even showcasing people or websites. However, there’s some things people don’t know when they first step into writing a roundup article. Usually it deals with images taken from other websites.
Hopefully this article will help you understand and handle images in roundups you write in the future.
How to Handle Images in Roundups
Regardless of the topic you choose for your roundup, you may wish to add an image for each of the items that you feature. The problem is, you can’t always just take the images. Some of those images may be purchased stock photos with a usage license that prevents you from freely using that image on your own website.
Other images could possibly be created by the blog or website owner (or whomever they hired), that they prefer to remain exclusive to only their own website.
You need to ask those blog or website owners for permission to use those images. When you do ask, make sure to let them know who you are, what your website is, and where you want to use the images. As a side note, before contacting the website owner, you may also want to look around the website to see if there may be a page for a image usage policy.
It is essential to ask for permission or there could be dire consequences. Some may send a takedown notice, and inform you of the consequences of continuing to use their images without permission. It could result in your website being de-listed by Google, your website hosting terminated or suspended until the issue is fixed, and/ or you being fined.
What happens if you don’t get permission to use the images?
Well, then you don’t use the images. You may need to go without using that website in your roundup, or at the least, doing without the image.
What happens if you do get permission to use the image?
If you’ve gotten permission to use the image for your roundup, from another website, then you need to know if the website owner has any requirements, like mentioning their name or website, or if they may need to send you a watermarked image. If the image is not watermarked, then you may need to add a disclaimer after the image or at the end of the post with credits to the image.
If the website owner says that image is a stock image that they bought, you may need to ask them where they bought the image because you will need to buy the image. That stock image, in most cases for individual or bootstrapping bloggers (bloggers who are usually new and can’t spend a lot of money), are purchased as an individual use license.
That means that the license is only to be used by them, so you won’t be covered. If you use the image, and the original artist questions your license, you will have to produce proof that you have a license.
Roundups what? Yes, I have learned something today. I also appreciate the information for website owners images.
With so many public sites allowing us to use images without attribution, it appears a lot of people have gotten into the habit of not requesting permissions at all. As you said, it is worth it to look at the terms of use for each website and applying what is stated. – Thank you, J.
Thanks James! Glad to have helped 🙂
Sure thing. I appreciate you getting back to me. 🙂
This information is vital for bloggers to know, Nile.
I’ve only ever had one email asking me to remove an image and that came with a warning about legal action. I’d taken the image from an obviously dodgy free image site and know it had been published elsewhere extensively (It was a photo of a Christmas Tree). That was years ago but it was enough to make me careful.
Even many legitimate free images come with a Creative Commons license. Although you can use them on your blog, some you can’t adapt, some can’t be used for commercial purposes and most of them require a link to the owner or site you got it from.
It’s obvious that copyright is broken all the time on certain image sharing social media sites. With so many images it must be difficult for copyright holders to track them down but I can see a time when the sites themselves get into trouble.
I often use Public Domain images from reputable sites.
This is a very relevant article. The laws behind copyright violations are very real and if you are on the wrong side of the law you could get yourself into a lot of trouble. Always better to be safe and follow the guidelines you established here. Great info!
Hello Nile.
Great article. I just recently dealt with this while doing a recipe round-up of “Top Healthy ‘Red, White, & Blue” 4th of July Recipes that are Dairy- and Gluten-Free.”
I contacted each recipe owner, asked for permission to use a photograph, and when I got approval, I made sure that I put a hyperlink in the image linking back to their recipe. I also linked to the original website/blog home page and the recipe when describing it. Finally, I noted the photo was “Courtesy of …..” whomever created it.
When I was all done doing my round-up, I then sent the link to each person thanking them again for allowing me to use an image. Hopefully, that in turn generated some social promotion!
Karen
This is a very educative post, especially when still new in blogging, This clearly shows what to do and by so doing one avoids what could happen to you blog and reputation in the future. Thanks for the share.
THIS is excellent information and advice! I’ve always wondered what to do about images within others’ blog posts – now I know. Thank you for the great info!
Nile, Great info on using images in roundups! I have done quite a few recipe round up posts on my site and I always contact each individual blogger first and ask for permission to use their recipe links and images in my post. Doing so is the best way to avoid copyright infringement issues. Thanks for doing this informative post!
I have bought an image from shutterstock recently and I found the same image for sale even after 3 months. What to do with this kind of issue?
Just because you bought the image, doesn’t mean that they take it off the market. You are buying a license to use it. The shuttershock site and other places like it don’t exclusively sell each image to 1 person.
Nile, the easy solution of it all. Has been located by using sources that give you prior permission. Google images is one source. There are countless others and they do not require payments. It is just a matter of finding the time to locate fresh free sources of pictures.
Thanks for the heads up. This is vital for all of us to read and understand. I would not want just anyone using my pictures without my permission.
Google images is NOT a free source for images. Google is a search engine and going to Google images and doing a search for specific types of images does not provide you the right to simply download and use the images that appear in their search database. You should always check the source of the image and even if there is no apparent watermark or copyright info it still does not give you the right to use it without permission. The best rule of thumb is if you don’t know who it belongs to and it doesn’t clearly state “Creative Commons” or available for licensing, then don’t use it.
Hi Nile, thanks for helping to educate bloggers about copyrights for images.
I’m concerned about Bill’s comment above – Google images aren’t a free source for anyone to use. Many of those images belong to other website owners also.
Hello Nile! I have never done a round up before but Yes have mentioned others in my blog posts before, U do think it it important to get permission before using their name or images.. This was an awesome post about copyrights for images.
Thanks for sharing
Chery :))
Since I am a professional photographer and instructor, this is a hot topic in the world of photography. Most of the images that are used illegally across the internet are used by individuals who have not been educated on copyright law. Honest mistakes that most photo owners are happy to forgive as long as the user provides appropriate photo credits. There are actually several ways for photographers to find their images in use on other websites, one is by uploading their images to Google Images which does a search and will pull up all sites found utilizing those specific images. There are also seveal other paid tools you can use to track your images across the web. The most important thing for image creators to do is to make sure Metadata is filled out on all images and a copyright watermark or statement accompanies any posting on the web and filing all images electronically with the U.S. Copyright Office (for U.S. based photographers) ensures you are protected and can take legal action against those individuals who choose to blatantly abuse copyright.
Great post Nile, with much needed info for the masses.
Hi Nile,
First of all I want to say you thanks for this great article where you cover some very interesting pints related to how to handle images in roundups, these day I saw many bloggers write weekly roundups post.. I love these post by which we can get best post information into single post.
Regards
Mohd Arif
YES!! I absolutely love the information you have put in this. It is VITAL that you don’t only check your images, but be respectful of others as well. I love round-ups but they always worry me when I’m not sure of sources.
Vital info we all need. Thanks, Nile.
But where does this leave us, as to posting on Pinterest?? If I share a blog post there, I always include a photo or other image the blogger had on his or her blog.
Wow, that’s such an insight, a real eye-opener, i mean i never knew i would permission to use certain images. I’ll be on the lookout, so my blogs reputation doesn’t get stained. Thanks for the great post.
I often times make use of some of these pictures without going thorough their permission terms but now i understand better. thanks a lot for sharing this.
It’s impressive that you are getting ideas from this piece of writing as well as from our dialogue made here. What’s up to every , because I am really eager of reading this web site’s post to be updated daily.
It contains good stuff. Google is a search engine and going to Google images and doing a search for specific types of images does not provide you the right to simply download and use the images that appear in their search database. You should always check the source of the image and even if there is no apparent watermark or copyright info it still does not give you the right to use it without permission.
After reading some of the comments it looks like there is some confusion about ownership rights of pictures used on websites. If the picture was created by the website owner then it is almost certain that the website owner does not own the picture; he or she only has a license to use that picture within the scope of the license. Often the scope of the license is limited to a particular domain. If that is the case then that person likely has no authority to tell you not to use the picture but you must acquire your own license for its use. Conversely, the website owner cannot unilaterally extend the license by giving you permission to use the picture.
In most cases, this would be it. However, if the website owner themself made the image from scratch, they do have the rights to their own images. It would be like telling me all the free graphics I made from scratch and gave out on this site weren’t mine.
Hi Nile,
Awesome post once again. I believe most external bloggers want attribution or citation in return for their image. It is acceptable and should be given in exchange. I mostly use CC licensed images to avoid any infringement problems in future.
Heyya. I absolutely love the information you have put in this. It is VITAL that you don’t only check your images, but be respectful of others as well. I love round-ups but they always worry me when I’m not sure of sources. There are actually several ways for photographers to find their images in use on other websites, one is by uploading their images to Google Images which does a search and will pull up all sites found utilizing those specific images. There are also seveal other paid tools you can use to track your images across the web. I always contact each individual blogger first and ask for permission to use their recipe links and images in my post. Doing so is the best way to avoid copyright infringement issues. Thanks for doing this informative post!
Hello Nile !
Greatly written. Yes,we should always be careful with the copyright products.I heard once that a guy used the copyrighted product of a site with any prior permission for it and was penalized badly.The website asked them to pay a huge buck for it. Also they were about to seize his domain with legal actions.
Thanks for reminding again Nile !
See ya!
Great post, I do worry that some people are using my own images sometimes. I am not sure what to do. I will probably let it go. Anyway, thanks for the great post!
hey Nile,
Your article is just amazing.
Can you tell me how many images I should add in a particular article? At time I’m using 2-3 images in my article!!
Hi Siddhant! How about I add your question to my “Ask Nile” serie? 🙂
Great content. I am a professional wedding photographer so i have 1000’s of images uploaded. am going to check my images now and see how many are out there being used by other sites. thank you
Hi! Nile,
I am visiting your blog for the first time and feeling superb reading this awesome blog post about the images used in roundups. I am just looking for something like that from last few days.
Images should be used very carefully in roundups and I would like to thank you for this wonderful article.
Could not move away without sharing with my twitter followers 🙂
Visit you again soon!
~ Umair Akram
Thanks Nile,
Learnt a new word today “Roundups”. I like all your post as they are short and sweet.
Thanks, keep writing,
Avinash
Hi Nile,
Absolutely a great post. But can you explain the “Roundup word?”
Heyya.,Great content. I am a professional wedding photographer so i have 1000’s of images uploaded. am going to check my images now and see how many are out there being used by other sites.Yes,we should always be careful with the copyright products.I heard once that a guy used the copyrighted product of a site with any prior permission for it and was penalized badly.The website asked them to pay a huge buck for it. Also they were about to seize his domain with legal actions.Google is a search engine and going to Google images and doing a search for specific types of images does not provide you the right to simply download and use the images that appear in their search database. You should always check the source of the image and even if there is no apparent watermark or copyright info it still does not give you the right to use it without permission.Often the scope of the license is limited to a particular domain. If that is the case then that person likely has no authority to tell you not to use the picture but you must acquire your own license for its use. Conversely, the website owner cannot unilaterally extend the license by giving you permission to use the picture. 🙂