Do not break the copyright law

It has come to my attention that some of the pictures I have on this site has been used for commercial purposes. If you steal a picture from the internet you are breaking the Copyright law. That can result in penalty and 2 years in prison. So think about that before you even think of copying/taking a picture from the internet.

It is always best to ask the person who have taken the picture for permission if you are going to use it for your own use, not commercial.

My pictures have been made into paintings, canvas, reprint and even coffee mugs etc. Lots of so called “artists” use picture they find online by searching for a animal and then steal that picture to make it part of their own “art”.

What should you do if someone steals your picture that you have put on the internet?

First of all, you have the law on your side if the picture is yours.

If you find someone is using your picture and selling it in some onlineshop then you need to contact that shop and tell them they are breaking the Copyright law and ask them to remove the picture. Usually this will help because none wants to break any laws if you are a shop owner. You just need to send a link to your page where the picture is to prove that you own the picture. Then it is also a good idea to give the link of the “art work” on their site so they can see the stolen picture that has been used.

How can you find out if someone is using your picture?

One easy way is to use google image search. You right click on the picture you want to know about. Choose “Search Goggle for image”. Then you will see all the pages that have your image.

Use Copyright notice

I got the advice from WordPress support to add a copyright notice so that visitors will be aware of what will happen when they take a picture. There is a page called creative commons where you fill in some options and that will create a link/icon which you add on your page to look like this:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This icon stands for different demands that the user can choose from. The icon above means you can share but not use for commercial use, if you use the picture you have to give credit to the person who took the picture. You can not rebuild or remake the picture. For more information about this the creative commons page will explain it.

2017©Expressive Photos