So this post is more SEO-adjacent, but image sourcing is still an important issue to address.
Backstory:
A copyright management company contacted a long-term client of mine on behalf of one of their clients. They shared a link to one of my client’s blog posts from 2017 (yes, that becomes important), said that their client held the copyright to the image included in the post, and asked that we prove we held a license to use the image.
This is where there’s a bit of the universe looking out for us and the stars aligning started happening.
- This client had been with me long enough that I was the one to source the image.
- I know better than to just snag a photo from the internet, so I knew for certain that the image had been sourced through legal means. I just needed to narrow down which one.
- My record-keeping is bar none.
If ANY of those three things hadn’t been the case, this story could have gone much differently.
I found the image in my files and realized it had been sourced from FreeDigitalPhotos.net. Unfortunately, though, when I went to pull the usage license verbiage from the site, I discovered that it was no longer in operation. Nevertheless, I responded to the copyright management firm, letting them know all of this.
As expected, this wasn’t good enough, and they came back stating that if I couldn’t prove we held a license for use, we’d owe them monetary damages/compensation. Despite a bit of panic, I took to the Wayback Machine and found a version of FreeDigitalPhotos.net from the date my computer showed I downloaded the image. I grabbed screenshots of the Terms of Use and the Standard Usage License, then sent those to the copyright management firm.
They once again responded that this wasn’t good enough and stated that if I couldn’t prove we held a license for use, we’d owe them monetary damages/compensation. I then knew they were either trying to intimidate me or hadn’t looked at the files I sent. I took to circling every bit of evidence within the screenshots that we had, in fact, acted in accordance with the terms of use and standard license. I took a screenshot of the blog post and circled the evidence there, too. I then sent all of this to the copyright management company with this message:
“As previously stated, we obtained the license to use this image via FreeDigitalPhotos.net. We acted in accordance with that site’s terms of use and standard licensing, as shown in the attached screenshots – both of the licensing/terms of use and of the post itself.
As the terms state, “The image is [ours] to use anywhere in the world as many times as [we] need and for as long as [we] want.” That said, we are not out to harm any entity, and as a show of good faith, we have removed the image from our website.
If you or your client feel monetary compensation is owed, the owners of FreeDigitalPhotos.net misrepresented the licensing, and your conversation should move to them. In an effort to help you track them down, here is the information available through WhoIs.com:
https://www.whois.com/whois/freedigitalphotos.net”.
This is when the copyright management firm decided to close the claim.
All of this is to show that it is BEYOND important to know and keep detailed records on the sourcing of ALL of the images you use on your website and social media outlets. If ANYTHING had been different in this situation, my client could be stuck owing an exorbitant amount of money – all because of an image used in ONE blog post almost a decade ago.
- If I no longer worked with this client and someone else had gotten the email, they might not have known where to start looking for the sourcing information.
- If my records weren’t so detailed that I knew where I got the image, when I downloaded it, where I downloaded it, the image ID from the download site, etc, I might not have been able to track down the license information to send to the copyright management company.
- And if I’d randomly snagged the image somewhere without knowing the terms of usage, there’d be no hope.
Forewarned is forearmed. The website/social media account owner ultimately bears all responsibility, no matter who originally sourced the image on your site or in your posts.
- If you’re having your website designed/redesigned, get documentation on where any images you don’t provide are sourced, and make sure you hold the usage license for any images you do provide.
- If you’re changing vendors for website maintenance, blogging, SEO, and/or social media management, get the info on images they’ve used, or get it in writing that they can follow up with you to get this documentation at a later date. Understand, though, that they may charge you for the time it takes to gather the information for you.
If there’s one takeaway here, it’s this: image sourcing is not a “set it and forget it” task. It is part of responsible website and social media management, and it can come back to you years later in very real and very expensive ways. Good intentions are not enough. Verifiable documentation is what protects you, your brand, and your bottom line. Whether content was published yesterday or nearly a decade ago, the responsibility ultimately rests with the business owner.
If you are not confident that your images are properly sourced, licensed, and documented, or if you are unsure what past vendors may have used on your behalf, this is worth addressing sooner rather than later. At SBN Marketing, we treat image sourcing, record keeping, and content accountability as part of doing SEO and social media the right way. If that’s what you’re looking for going forward, get in touch. We are always happy to have a conversation and see if we are a good fit.
