Copying Pictures illegal?

[blzalewski]

is it legal to copy/paste a royalty-free sample image from gettyimages.com and use it on my own website? I'm currently using a sample image I saw on their site but they're trying to sell the picture in a much higher resolution for a couple hundred bucks.

[bobothecat]

Best to contact gettyimages.com and receive written approval... I'd suggest you do that before using anything from their stock.

[Frida]

As far as I took a glance around the site *gettyimages.com*, their pictures are obviously not free.

So I agree completely with what was said above - you need to contact them and get their written permission. Most companies who are specialized in the field of picture sales are somewhat very sensitive when it comes to protecting their own content.

[jcmoon]

I've also heard that companies that make their money from selling images have started their own bots crawling the net. The bots go to websites looking for images, and then do some fancy number-crunching to compare them to photos in their database.

It seems that simple photoshop filters like blurring, sharpening, tweaking colors, etc (to say nothing of cropping or resizing) are NOT enough ... these companies make lots of money through intellectual property (their image sets), so they go to great lengths to protect it.

When the bots do help catch someone using their images illegally, I'm guessing a DMCA note followed by litigation happens next.

Best bet: get written permission. Or, don't use it. Or, spend the dough (tough to do, I admit).

If money's an issue, there are other sites with quality stock photos, at much lower prices (depends on the subject, of course).

[vincevincevince]

By royalty free they mean that once you have licensed the image you don't have to pay royalties each time it is used. Royalty free is not the same as public domain.

[Syzygy]

Getty is the biggest commercial photo library in the world. They make money by selling their pics - not giving them out for free - and take great pleasure in legally harrassing those who use their images without paying.

Steal, or "copy", their images at your own peril!

Syzygy