Copyright and Fair Use of Online Images

Do you understand the term fair use?
Just because you provide attribution and/or a link back to the original doesn’t mean you’re free and clear. Fair use has nothing to do with attribution. That’s an issue related to plagiarism – different from copyright.

A classic example of fair use of an image to use online is product reviews. If you want to review a book, a new piece of technology, a food product or whatever widget, you’ll likely want to include a photo.

Fair use basically means you’re allowed to infringe on someone’s copyright and they can’t do anything about it. If your use is covered by fair use, you don’t have to provide attribution anyway (although it would be nice). The question is:

• Why are you using the image?
• Did you transform the image?
• How much of the image are you using?
• Are you willing to risk your site being taken down?

Read the whole article here:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/copyright-fair-use-and-how-it-works-for-online-images/