Visual Impact – The Rights and Wrongs of Images In Marketing

One of my all-time favorite jokes is about babies...

“How many babies does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

“None – they neither have the cognitive or motor skills to perform such a task!”

You could imagine a baby holding a lightbulb and trying to insert it into a lamp or socket. But if you wanted to see it, you could log into an AI image generator to create one.

Using?tools like?Adobe Firefly,?Canva,?DALL-E 3,?Midjourney, and more, you can simply type in what you are thinking, and they will auto-generate multiple images from which you can choose.?Then, you can modify and enhance it to your liking.

If you look hard enough, you can almost always find flaws, but the average person will only spend a second or two and then move on.

AI opens some interesting conundrums about the use of images. Who owns the copyright? What if you use a well-known person? Can you be sued?

We are certainly at the forefront of what can be done with AI. Google has a tool called Google Lens that allows you to highlight a piece of an image, and Google will search for web pages with images that are similar or exactly matched.

This becomes a problem when someone contacts you, accuses you of a copyright violation, and wants to charge you for the use of an image that you obtained legally. Or did you obtain it legally?

Copyright or Copywrong

Image copyright is about the legal rights granted to the creator of an original image, giving them exclusive control over how that image is used and distributed.

Now, I am not a lawyer, but I have been around the block a few times when it comes to copyrights. In the old days, when you wrote or recorded a piece of music, it was a thing to put it in an envelope and mail it to yourself. That date stamped on the envelope was used to prove the date that you created the work. You could also go through the hassle and expense of submitting a form with the work to the US Copyright Office and have it recorded legally.

But, when someone sues you, you have the burden of proof to prove that you created an original piece on a certain date or obtained the right to legally use a piece of music or an image.

• There are some limited exceptions to copyright, such as fair use, which allows for certain uses of copyrighted material without permission for purposes like criticism, commentary, or education.
• Copyright owners can grant permission for others to use their images through various types of licenses, which may involve fees and specific usage terms.
• Finding an image on the internet does not mean it's free to use. Most online images are protected by copyright and require permission or proper licensing for use.

In today's digital world, metadata is associated with almost every file uploaded. This can either help or hurt you when someone claims you have used an image illegally. It can get complicated if you use an image for a business purpose. If a company can find an image on your website and other marketing without attribution, the onus is on you to prove that you have the legal right to use it.

This happened to a client recently.

Cease and Desist

Images are assets. These assets can be bought and sold. What once was a free image that you picked up from free image sites like Pixabay or Pexels can be sold to a paid-for library. Those libraries can use tools like Google Lens or a metadata search to find that specific image.

A client of mine received an email claiming ownership of an image on his blog that they now owned and wanting to charge him for the use. He called me panicked.

“Am I liable?” he asked.

I replied, “That depends.”

He received an email from a company in Europe accusing him of illegally using an image. I have had the same thing happen with lawyers in the US. They try to invoke fear and get you to take the image down and pay them for the use. They have no idea that you may have paid for it or gotten it fair and square from a free-use site. The image may have been taken down from those sites, and the rights sold to a larger company.

Either way, it's up to you to prove that. So here are some tips to avoid that happening to you. And if it does happen, how do you shut them down from harassing you?

Track and Save

Free image sites are great but filled with peril. As I said, a free-use image needs to be tracked and documented. For example, the blog my client was accused of using a copyrighted image on was from 2018 (almost seven years ago). So, the first question to ask is what image you claim you own and what date your client acquired the image.

Another habit I have is that if I use a free image, I download and save it in a folder on a backup hard drive. That at least tells me the date I downloaded the image. That is no guarantee that the image uploaded to a free site was posted by the original owner or that the person who uploaded it was the actual copyright holder, but it's better than driving blind.

This is why I now only use images I have shot personally or purchased from a library (like?Adobe Stock) that records purchases and allows me to search dates and re-download if necessary. If you quit using that site, you should download your purchase history to track when you purchased the image and from whom.

Finally, metadata can be your friend or enemy. I searched a couple of images I had downloaded and uploaded them to a metadata reading tool. One image said that it was copyrighted in 1998 and owned by Hewlett Packard. It could be that it was made available for free use, or someone just compiled it and claimed that they took the photo and owned it!

Closing Thought

At this point, I feel safe creating images with Firefly because I have a paid account with Adobe for their creative suite and their Stock Images (two different accounts). I would not be as confident using anything I am not paying for. Even if you win the battle, you are spending your time trying to ward off what I consider an attack.

If you do nothing, you may win or end up in court. I lost that way and had to pay a lawyer $1000 and the company that owned the file $2500. They were suing me for $16,000, which is absurd, but if I ignored them and they won, I could have a loss in my business or worse.

It's not worth the time, trouble, or money to ignore the issue. So all this free stuff is tempting… but sometimes “The Cheap comes out EXPENSIVE!”

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Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about business-to-business sales and marketing today! Do you have a sales or marketing communications strategy that works for you? What tips or techniques can you share that work for you and your business?

To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at?The Bacon Podcast.