Google Images, Free Vectors, GIF's, and Icons: What You Need to Know Right Now

So you've found the perfect images for your project, but you may not know about copyright or you might not be sure whether it's okay to use the images for your personal or commercial needs. While it may be frustrating enough to want to hire a copyright lawyer, many small businesses, website owners and craftsmen may not be able or willing to spend big bucks for copyright services.

First, what is copyright and how does it affect you?

In general, copyright protects the creator and his work from being copied. This applies to both personal and commercial uses. The creator of the work alone has the right to copy and control all aspects of any copies made of such work.

In the United States, copyright is the right to create a piece of work and automatically be given protection from another entity using or copying that piece of work, for personal or commercial use, whether or not it has been published or registered.

All countries have their own copyright laws, and those laws must be adhered to by anyone who wishes to use images from another country. You can find helpful information about many countries' copyright laws by reading the U.S. Copyright Office's Circular 38a: "International Copyright Relations of the United States" at copyright.gov/circs or by visiting the World Intellectual Property Organization's website at wipo.int/.

While it's not necessary to spend hours reading about copyright law, it's a good idea to be a little familiar with it. You can find a good overview on Wikipedia, just use the search term "copyright".

In general if you do not adhere to copyright laws you risk being sued, and penalized.

The good news is that most designers are well aware of the copyright laws that protect them, and will be more than happy to tell you what you need to know to use their clip art for commercial purposes.

To be safe, find and keep a record of the following information about the clip art you've chosen:

Some websites offer hundreds of different artist's work. Not all of the artist's allow commercial use, and some have different terms of use.

Does the actual creator of the image allow commercial use?

Do you need to pay extra for a commercial use license once you have purchased the image, and how long will the license last?

Are you limited to how many items you can use the image with, or to what types of items you can make with the image?

Will you have to pay royalties and what will the terms be?

There are also a couple things you should never do:

Resell the images as they are. For example: You want to compile or offer some clip-art, vectors or graphics on a CD or website. To do this, you would need a special "Resale License" and most designer's do not offer this. Change the art in any way or claim the it as your own. In most cases you cannot copy or change any works created by another entity.

It is absolutely necessary to check (and document) the designer's "Terms of Use" or "Policies" to get the answers to these questions. If you can't find a designer's terms of use, or you're still not clear on how their terms play a part in your intended use of the images, the best thing to do is to email the designer (or photographer) and ask. Either wait for an answer or be prepared to shell out some money for a copyright lawyer.

Imagine that you have a successful product, with a lot of time, money, and hard work behind it. It is safer and easier to deal with copyright issues in the beginning rather than in the end, in court.

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Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Google-Images,-Free-Vectors,-GIFs,-and-Icons:-What-You-Need-to-Know-Right-Now&id=5680875] Google Images, Free Vectors, GIF's, and Icons: What You Need to Know Right Now

Filed under  //   commercial   copyright   email   google  

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Copyright and Using Images on Your Website and Blog Posts

A visual can sure add a lot of impact to a website or your blog. It can give an immediate "ah-ha" to the reader and attract attention to your articles. Adding an image or creative work to your web page or post can make a big difference on the impact of your message. Images do grab readers' attention, but be careful, you can't use just any image... Using a copyrighted image without permission from the creator of the work or the copyright holder is copyright infringement. This article is a short introduction to copyright and creative images. Please check with an intellectual property attorney for more specifics and to answer your specific questions about copyrights and creative works.

You can't just use any image you find and like in blog posts, on your web site or in printed material. The law automatically grants full "copyright" over any creative work a person makes. This includes any creative work such as drawings, photos and text. Copyrights are applied to all intellectual property such as books, websites, blogs, photographs, audio and video recordings, e.g. songs, music and YouTube videos too. When choosing a creative work to use, make sure that it has a creative common license, a full-usage, licensed or granted usage, or is royalty-free. All have limitations and, except for full-usage, rarely grant complete usage rights. Ask for a copy of the usage license rights and restrictions before purchasing or using an image. Many places like Fotosearch.com and PhotoDisc.com have the licenses they use posted on their sites.

Images marked as "All Rights Reserved" are copyrighted and require permission from their creator. Images marked as "Some Rights Reserved" have a creative commons license applied. There are several types of creative commons licenses. Each license imposes different restrictions on how you use the images. There are four main types of creative common licenses, "Attribution," "Share Alike," "Noncommercial," "No Derivative Works." Each of the four categories has a variety of license types for different usages, visit rel=nofollow http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ to learn more.

Creative Commons is an organization that provides free content licenses that the person developing the creative piece can apply to their work. ( rel=nofollow http://creativecommons.org/license/ ) The artists that choose to use this license are giving people permission to use the licensed piece without having to ask permission, provided they use it in the manner stated in the Creative Common License. Read each Creative Common License carefully as they do vary.

When using an image with a creative commons license, it is important to note the attribution with the image; e.g., Photo by John Smith licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic. Check with the creator of the image or the website that you get the image from, e.g. Flickr, for guidelines. This will ensure you are compliant with copyright requirements and give credit where credit is due.

This article is not meant to be legal advice and you are encouraged to further educate yourself about copyright and the implications to your site. Copyright laws vary internationally.

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Filed under  //   copyright   creative   flickr   image   plus   youtube  

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How To Get Protection Against Copyright Violation

To those who have been a victim of copyright theft, they are fully aware of the importance of copyright protection, security certification and security training. Apart from that you must be prepared to deal with the situation when someone tries to steal your content.

You must have noticed the mention of when rather than if. That was actually intentional. With the excess of information available on Internet, it is just a matter of "when" instead of "if".

The initial step in knowing about what to do when somebody takes your content is to keep in mind that it is bound to happen. Thus the more geared up and well-informed you remain, the better are your probability of prevention. This will help you keep a plan in place when any such thing happens.

As the amount of WebPages and blogs rise, the demand for newer content keeps on putting more pressure on website administrators. Tired of the situation, the only option is to steal others content. This is because their aim is to attract traffic which is not possible without website hijacking. It is the obvious use of part or at times your entire website content without permission. It is also a kind of copyright violation that must be dealt with.

Copyright rules were intended to defend those who deserved to be honored. Just imagine what will happen when you stop paying your lawyers, doctors or electricians, etc. technically they must be paid for their services. In case, you do not, the collectors will be after you. Likewise, when your web content is stolen there is something that you need to do fast. The first thin to do is confront content theft.

In case your wallet, or purse gets stolen, or you have a robbery at home, you can call the police and insurance company so that your valuables can be recovered. But when your content gets stolen, the big question is where to look for help?

Sadly, until some agency is organized to protect your inventive rights, the majority of the combat needs to be done by you. There is no need to get overwhelmed by this thought. The idea is to make the procedure of retrieving your stolen content easy to understand and implement.

After that you need to clear your myth popular about copyrights and their violation.

• Chasing somebody accused of copyright violation is not that time-consuming or expensive.

• You do not need to hire a lawyer.

• You do not need anything apart from some easy actions.

• The defense of copyright rules must NOT be given solely to companies having money.

• The Protection and safeguard of copyrights is not that complicated.

Believe it or not, these are all myths. Only because information on internet is free does not really give you the right to steal it. Everything from designs, images to graphics is all protected by copyright laws. Being an intellectual property, no one has the right to steal them under any circumstances.

Not tracking down or stopping a property from getting stolen is no easy task. You have to go deep into the matter to find out who the culprit is.

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Making Money From Low-Cost Recipes

During a recession, such as we have now, many people search for ways to save money on living expenses. This is an ideal time to assemble and sell a set of low-cost recipes. These recipes would show how to prepare delicious, wholesome meals using inexpensive ingredients.

Finding low-cost recipes -- There are various sources for low-cost recipes. These could be recipes that had been passed down from earlier generations of your family. They could be recipes from friends and relatives. They could be recipes you found on the Internet or in old time books. Perhaps you could experiment while preparing meals for your family -- then you could develop your own recipes.

Testing the recipes -- It would be a good idea to review and test the recipes before selling them. You want to verify that the ingredients are inexpensive and wholesome. In addition, the result should be appealing and delicious. In some cases, you may want to change the recipe slightly so that it meets all of the above tests.

Abiding by copyright restrictions -- When selling recipes developed by other people, you must be careful not to infringe on any copyrights still in force. If a copyright applies, you may try getting written permission from the copyright holder to use that recipe. The copyright rules are described in Circular 15a, Duration of Copyright: Provisions of the Law Dealing with the Length of Copyright Protection. (See below for a link to the Cornell University website that shows these provisions.)

Assembling a set of recipes -- Normally you want to assemble a set of recipes that are as useful as possible. If you have a large number recipes in a particular category, that would be one way to organize a set. Thus, you could focus on appetizers, barbecues, cakes, desserts, drinks, fish, meat, pastries, salads, sandwiches, soups, stews, specialty dishes, or vegetables. You could focus on low calorie meals, low cholesterol meals, high-protein meals, or well-balanced meals.

Publishing and delivering these recipes -- there are various ways to publish and deliver these recipes sets. I assume you would use a word processing program to record these recipes. Then you could print booklets and send them through the mail. You could have your customers download the word processing file from the Internet. Alternatively, you could convert the word processing file into a PDF file and have your customers download the PDF file from the Internet.

Advertising these recipes -- You could sell your sets of recipes using classified advertisements in your local newspaper or craigslist, a website on the Internet, an online newsletter, or eBay�. I would start with one or two inexpensive methods of advertising at first. Then you could gradually test other methods to see if they return a profit. If you live in a large city, try using rel=nofollow http://www.craigslist.org first.

Copyright provisions -- Go to the rel=nofollow http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm website of Cornell University.

You can find many useful ideas on having more money, success secrets, starting a small business, and business basics on my http://www.moneymagic1-2-3.com/ website.

Charles Moorehead was a certified public accountant for 40 years. Now he is spending his free time helping people improve their lives.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Charles Moorehead. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

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Filed under  //   copyright   craigslist   ebay   mail   people search   recipes  

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Looking To Make Money By Writing?

Due to the proliferation of internet access around the world, the demand for articles with original content has increased. There are so many articles and blogs that are rewritten over and over and can hardly be called original. Therefore many companies are looking for "humans" that provide a continual flow of original content.

There is need also for review articles on many areas such as website review, product review and restaurant reviews and others.

Previous experience is NOT normally required, and there are full-time, part-time and contract jobs that are available. Most of these jobs can be completed from the comfort of your own home. Most of these jobs are open to international writers and all that is need is a computer and internet connection. There are three things that need to be understood and followed in order to make a good and steady income:

1. Diligence to complete work - It is important that those that take up these jobs work diligently and prove that they are capable to complete projects on time. This keeps the doors open for companies to keep them in employment and there is good income for those who write regularly. Feedback on progress on jobs will put the writers in good stead with employers.

2. Keep to copyright requirements - Many companies or employers will require that articles and written materials are under their ownership and copyright as they will be marketing many of the articles in a commercial environment. Writers must not try to use the same written material in any way that constitutes a breach of copyright laws. This would be the fastest way to lose credibility in this area of employment.

3. Don't be over-demanding - Employers normally offer a good rate of remuneration for online writers and with beginners, it is wise to work along with what is offered and then build up your skill level until you are able to command a bigger income. Excessive demands will push your profile right out of contention.

These companies pay regularly and on time. Their modes of payment are normally bi-weekly or monthly and the mode of payment is either by check, wire transfer or even PayPal.

These are real paying jobs and are available to anyone looking for extra or full-time income. Jobs include freelance, content, article business, book, magazine, Review, Children Magazine writers and the list goes on.

To learn more, visit http://www.bestrealjobs.info

Niel Peters worked for the Finance Industry and International Trade for many years and is now a public speaker.

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Looking-To-Make-Money-By-Writing?&id=5315465] Looking To Make Money By Writing?

Filed under  //   copyright   good   jobs   part-time   paypal   review   time   written  

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How the Experts Make Big Bucks From Public Domain List

Since Public Domain, comprises of various creation of works from photos to literature, to books to software to almost everything ready to be available for the public audience, it is common for people to ask what types of works and information make up the public domain list. The category of materials that are widely spread that are not qualified for all-out copyright includes the following:

- Those items that is ineligible for copyright protection such as ideas and facts because it would be very difficult for the law to include this because it's not tangible.

- Included works are those creations that doesn't have any copyright protection

- Those works that failed to meet the requirements for copyright protection

- Works that has been owned by the US government

Thus, there exist huge materials in the public domain where you can conveniently use to earn profit. If you can just be creative and you will know what to do on those works that you have found, there will be a possibility that you too, can earn big bucks from it. For example, when you got to the Library of Congress you can encounter almost 13 million prints and photographs as 200,000 film titles there which can cater you new ideas that can help you create of something new. Aside from that, it also holds drawings, maps, posters and other media that can be helpful for the public especially to young professionals. Inside the national archives are almost eight million photographs and up to 150,000 and more film reels, 160,000 plus sound recordings and almost 20,000 plus video tapes that sure are FREE for usage.

However, even if they are indeed free, you still need to know that rules on how to use all of them to get rid of violations. Of course, you do not want to spoil the fun that you can get, so prevention is very important for such actions. Sometimes entrepreneurs do when to avoid of confrontations from the law is to change something in a certain works and republish it in public. By this kind of action, you alone can have a legal authorization of the new work where you can do anything with the said work of yours. Perhaps you can do something with the interface say, you change the color of the font or resize it, and it could help if you add some personal customization on your work that would reflect your personality so that you can say that this certain work is a part of you. Doing such thing can help you avoid accusations of plagiarism and other faulty violations.

Now, I just give you some information regarding public domain and the other things you can do with it. Please click the resource box below to know more.

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Filed under  //   copyright   do something   domain   plus   public  

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Get Free Website Content With a Public Domain

You need content for websites that you own, which can mean quite a bit of writing. Or your website content can come from a little known free source called public domain. This source of content has been around for a long time but you may not be capitalizing on it.

What is public domain?

This is information that is not under a copyright law. Not just limited to actual text, this information may in the form of audio, images, pictures, video and more. All these different forms of media may have expired copyrights or it may never been under any copyright. Without these, it may be in the public domain.

Can I use this information?

You do need to check to make certain the information is in the public domain and free of copyright restrictions. If it is free of those you can use it as content on your blog or on your website. You can use the information or media as is or adapt it. Change it to fit your niche or if it is an old book, you could re-write to make it modern. You can actually use the media in places other than your blog, actually you can use it in a wide variety of other places as well.

What can I do with public domain content?

Just about anywhere you would use that media format, you can use public domain media. You can easily use videos to create your own video products. You can create an audio book from audio or from an old book. Create membership websites and fill it with information you find. Use images for shirts and graphics. You are only limited to your imagination.

How do I know what is the public domain?

This does take some research. Anything you find, you need to check and use it at your own risk. Like every rule, there are exceptions to the guidelines to finding things without copyrights. Typically anything before 1923 is in the public domain.

After that time, there are different rules for different time frames. Then with magazines it depends on if the publisher renewed the copyright on that issue. Most of the information the government creates and puts on websites is in the public domain. When you consider how many different departments of the government need information and allow it to be publicly accessible it is an outstanding amount of media to which you could potentially have access.

Are you wondering how to get started online? Or need a little how to help?

You can find friendly, easy step by step guides here.

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Filed under  //   copyright   domain   public   step by step   use  

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Exercise Caution When Operating a Home-Based VHS to DVD Service

More and more people each day are looking for ways to make extra money from their home. Reasons vary from place to place and person-to-person, usually being associated with a feeling of insecurity about one's job in the current economy. One possible option for consideration is the creation of a home-based VHS to DVD service. However, one must exercise caution when starting up this type of business.

Copyright laws are very strict around the world. These laws were written in order to protect the intellectual property of others from being taken and sold as one's own product. These laws cover such things as books, magazines, newspapers, audio recordings, and video recordings. This means that anytime someone purchases a copy of a movie on VHS or DVD, that item is copyrighted and protected from having duplicates made for resale.

However, there is a clause in this law that allows for the original purchaser of copyrighted material to make and possess a single copy of said material for archival purposes. In other words, it is perfectly legal to copy a movie and use that copy for one's own personal entertainment while the original is stored for protection against degradation.

One of the problems that may arise is that a person may have an original copyrighted VHS cassette that he/she wants converted to DVD. As long as only one copy of the material on the VHS cassette is produced and burned to a DVD, there has been no copyright infringement, thus no laws broken. However, if the person producing the copy creates two, that person is guilty of copyright infringement and subject to penalties that include fines and incarceration.

If one is operating a VHS to DVD service out of his/her home, it is highly likely that there will be several sets of dedicated equipment that are designed to produce copies of materials that are copyrighted or not. It is possible that someone seeing this equipment may suspect that one is pirating movies and making illegal copies.

Extreme care must be taken at all times to document the source, owner, and destination of each copy made. These records must be kept available for review by proper authorities at all times in order to avoid even the appearance of breaking the law. Failure to maintain and produce such documentation upon demand can result in an individual being unjustly accused of copyright infringement and punished as if guilty because there is no proof of innocence.

Marc Miller is the co-founder of [http://www.vinyltodigital.co.uk/]Vinyl To Digital, the UK's only Audio and Video conversion service where he has been providing a [http://www.vinyltodigital.co.uk/video/vhs-to-dvd.html]VHS to DVD Service for the last five years. Vinyl to Digital is based in the Midlands area of England, UK.

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Filed under  //   books   copyright   dvd   must  

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