You can indeed find billions of images on the web, but at the same time, you must know that you cannot use each image that tempts you. Copyrights protect images on the web. If you copy and use one of the protected images, you can easily get yourself accused of plagiarism and face some serious legal issues.
Now that you know about the severity of the case, we would also like you to know that not all web images are off the limits. There are tons of images that can be used without paying any royalty fee or by taking permission. The best way to save yourself from legal trouble is by verifying the image before using it on your website/blog or wherever you want.
If you do not know how to verify images and are looking for suggestions/tips, you should surely read the different ways that we have listed in this post.
Five ways to verify an image before using it!
If you want to get details of the image owner and whether it can be used or not, you must follow the image verification techniques that we have discussed below!
- Look for image credits or contact details!
This is the most basic way that even a child can use to verify an image. When you see an image online which tempts you, then you must focus on its details. You must look at it carefully and see if you find any details about the owner in the image’s caption. You should look specifically for the name of the creator or designer. In most cases, you would find emails attached to the images that would link you to the owner’s website. You can contact the image owner from there and request them to let you use the image for free or against a nominal amount. This is an easy way of image verification, but you must know that it would consume a lot of your time.
- Look for a watermark!
Looking for a watermark on the image is very much important. If you see a watermark on the image, you can surely see that it is copyrighted. This is another simple way of verifying the images. The watermarks on the image would often show you details of the owner’s name or the company to which the image belongs. You can google the name of the company or the owner marked on the images, and from the results, you can easily connect with the owner of the image. We would recommend you ask permission from the owner before using the image. We would allow you to remove the marks on the image by using online image editor tools under no circumstances.
- Check the metadata of the image!
This is another way of verifying the details of the image. Some image creators and designers would hide their contact information and other important details in the image’s metadata. This data is also known as EXIF data, and you can easily get access to this data from your desktop or your mac systems. After decoding the data and finding the owner’s details, you can easily ask his permission before using the image. You can easily find out if the image can be used for free without any restrictions from EXIF.
- Use reverse image search technique!
The reverse image search technique is quite simple and brilliant. If you want to get any information about an image that you see on the web or have received on your messenger, you can easily make a search by image. There are many image searching platforms on the web, but we would like you to know that the reverse image search by Duplichecker is quite reliable. With this image search tool, you can easily find the origin of the image, its copyrights, ownership, and availability on different websites. You can also find image plagiarism with the reverse image search technique by duplichecker.
This image finder is the most accurate and simple way of verifying an image, so we suggest you try it out while it is still free!
Pro Tip: Do not use it if you doubt it!
The best way to avoid legal troubles is to avoid using images that you feel are not safe to use or are protected by copyrights. You have to use your gut sometimes to stay away from trouble, and so the fifth way to do verification is by staying away from fishy sites and image-rich platforms.
To summarize the post, you must always verify an image before you use it. You have to take permission from the creator, or you have to pay credits to the owner. In this way, you can use the image by agreeing to the terms of use issued by the creator/owner!
