wheel - 11:21 pm on Jan 16, 2013 (gmt 0)

I was talking abut graphics. I don't have any pics on my site. If I did, I wouldn't use stock photos that every visitor has one look at and realizes it's a pic from a stock photo site. I think it brands your site as mickey mouse unless one is very very careful.

And if you did want a stock photo, I'd still pay a local, probably amateur,photographer to do it. Because you're not understanding the undertones here - Getty's main cash cow is not stock photography. Getty's main cash cow is suing users of their stock photography.

Go have a look at your site from 5 years ago. Can you prove right now that you have rights to every image on that version of your site? Don't think you can't/won't be sued for not being able to prove that stuff. Worse, if your artist created custom image using elements from somewhere else, you need to be able to prove at any time that you have rights for all the underlying elements. Or again, risk getting sued. And getting sued isn't hypothetical anymore, I'm sure they have bots crawling the web looking for this stuff and suing in an automated fashion.

Me, I avoid the industry entirely.