This is a great question because so many people are unaware that you can’t do this – or rather that you shouldn’t without paying for them. It’s easy to understand where the confusion lies when it comes to this subject because it’s so easy to right click your mouse and save an image so that it’s in your possession, but just because you have the means to use the image for free, it doesn’t mean that you should - what’s more, doing so for commercial purposes is often illegal.

This applies to more than just Google images too, as many people fall into the trap of using licensed images from specialist libraries in their marketing materials without paying the fee – be it for a website, brochure, adverts, whatever.

The fee for images that libraries such as Getty or Shutterstock charge pays the photographers whose work is used. These photographers have to cover costs for their equipment as well as models, studio space, lighting etc. Not paying their fee is copyright theft.

The costs for images vary, depending on the artist and the media that they’ll be used in. Typically the larger the format or circulation of the image, the more expensive the fee will be. Image licensing is a complicated business with varying limitations and restrictions, so to be on the safe side you should always locate the image source and read its terms of use. 

We recently heard about a business which was contacted by an image library and fined for using an unlicensed image on its website. The business owner was unaware that the image hadn’t been paid for so the fine, which was thousands of pounds, was as unexpected as it was damaging to the business. The lesson here is although image license fees might seem high; the fines for ignoring them (or being ignorant of them) are much higher, so it’s important that you know exactly how and where you can use the images that you find online.

To use another example, we worked for a client a few years back who had purchased an image under the the condition that it could be used no more than 10,000 times for the price paid. This seems like a heck of a lot of marketing activity for one image, however we pointed out to them that if they tried to use the image in an advert in a publication whose print run exceeded 10,000 copies, they would run into trouble, as each individual copy of the magazine/paper would count towards the total number of times the image could be used under its existing license.

It’s worth noting that photographers commissioned to take bespoke photographs for use in marketing can enforce similar licenses – so be sure to ask them about this when you hire them.

The rules change with every image so the best advice we can give is to always find out where the image came from and check the terms and conditions of its use.

Do you want to know more or do you have another marketing question we can help with? Is PR proving to be a nightmare? Or design doing your head in? Talk to us. Email your questions anonymously to us today hello@silverbulletmarketing.co.uk or Tweet us (not so anonymously) @SilverBulletPR and use the hash tag #AskSB