Could You Be Stealing Stock Photos?

I'm part of a couple of different business groups. In the last two months, a serious but surprising topic has come up among the group members three times. My professional peers were contacted by lawyers telling them that they'd used an image on their blog without paying for it or citing its source.

If this is something you've ever done, say, scrolled through Google images to find what looks like a great pic to include with your latest blog article, you could be the next facing legal action. So, I have to ask, who took the photo in your blog post? And did you pay for it? Could you be stealing stock photos?

"Come on," I can practically hear you saying, "I don't want to/can't afford to buy a new image every single time I post a new article to my blog."

Well, I have two responses to that: 1) It's a lot more affordable than you might think (and a LOT more affordable than legal fines). Plus, you can rest easy knowing you're covered if you do purchase all your images. 2) There actually are many free resources for images that you can use safely.

Designmodo recently published a Carrie Cousins article on great places to source free stock photography. Titled 16 Places to Find the Best Free Stock Photos, it's just that – a comprehensive and fabulous list of 16 separate sources of free stock imagery.

Cousins' selections include:

1. Raumrot
2. Unsplash
3. Little Visuals

4. Gratisography
5. Free Refe
6. Jay Mantri
7. Magdeleine
8. Foodies Feed
9. Picography
10. Im Free
11. Death to the Stock Photo
12. New Old Stock
13. SuperFamous
14. Public Domain Archive
15. Picjumbo
16. The Pattern Library

I've personally used Death to the Stock Photo ever since I heard about the photo sharing site months ago. I look forward to trying some of these other options, too. Tell me, where are your favorite stock photography sources?

To view the original article, visit the Properties Online blog.