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When I use images that are not my own, I either scrupulously abide by the copyright and license restrictions or use image clearly in the public domain. I found a website, Pixabay.com, where the images are clearly marked as "Public Domain." I used quite a few of their images over a period of time and had no problems. Then suddenly, the website retracted all of the images and put up what was essentially an advertisement in the place of each photo and further implied that I had used the images improperly. As a result, I have gone back through my posts and removed all of the photos I could find that came from that website.
If you come across a blacked out photo on any one of my posts, please leave a comment to that effect and I will immediately remove that photo. Thanks for your cooperation.
I suggest that extreme caution should be exercised in using any images that are not clearly marked as in the public domain or that are old enough to be out of copyright.
If you look at Pixabay's FAQ page, it says, "You can copy, modify, distribute, and use the images, even for commercial purposes, all without asking for permission or giving credits to the artist."
ReplyDeleteHowever, if you go further down the page, it says "NO HOTLINKING - what does that mean? - If you want to show Pixabay images on your website, please upload them to your server. Pixabay image URLs don't work on external sites."
Every time someone loads one of your blogposts that has a Pixabay image on it, it fetches the image from the Pixabay server. This takes up bandwidth that, as a free service, Pixabay probably cannot afford, which explains why they have that rule. I have read on other sites that it is courteous to not "hotlink" images from other websites unless it states specifically on the website that you are allowed to do so.
You can download images from Pixabay and uploaded them to blogger to post them. Pixabay shouldn't have a problem with that.