No matter what your type of business, odds are that you’re going to need graphics for it. You’ll need a design for your business card, images for your blog posts and photos for your website, for starters.
Thanks to the Internet, you can just pull any image from any website, right? Wrong! Read on to find out why you should work strictly with graphic supply companies.
Copyright Law
Unless an image has a “Creative Commons,” license, chances are that it’s not legal for you to use, even if you credit the original graphic designer or photographer. Even some Creative Commons images come with guidelines. For example, some images you can tweak and others you can’t. Also, there are tons of images online that are owned by big stock companies, like Getty Images. If you accidentally use one of their images, even if you get it from another website, you can have a big problem on your hands – one that will take a lot of time and money to solve.
Ideally, if you happen to use someone else’s work without permission, you’ll be sent a “Cease and Desist” letter first. That doesn’t always happen, though. Some people and businesses skip that nicety and go right to their legal department, which will chase you down for payment.
Stock Companies
There are tons of great stock photo companies out there, like Graphic Stock. These images are available for use depending on the site’s guidelines. Sometimes you have to pay a fee to use any images you want, or you may have to pay a small amount of money each time you use a new image. Regardless of the guidelines, working with a website like this is worth it – you won’t be in breach of any copyrights, which means you don’t run the risk of getting in trouble.
The biggest perk of getting images from a stock company is that they have so many available. No matter what you’re looking for, you’ll find ample options when using quality stock image companies. Plus, the images will be of high quality, which will help you set your business apart from the competition.
