Is it Free?

Dear Is It Free,

While you may have been able to copy a picture of the image, that doesn’t mean it is free for you to use in your marketing. Many images have a copyright and fee associated with their use. A professional design firm has multiple sources for imagery and artwork for your marketing needs and they take care of the licensing and fees as part of your overall consult. If you would like to search the web and purchase your own photos and clip art, we recommend the following sites to keep it on the level. Some of these sites offer reasonably priced or free images in addition to images that have a fee.

• http://www.gettyimages.com/creativeimages/royaltyfree
• http://www.shutterstock.com/
• http://www.stockfreeimages.com/
• http://freerangestock.com/

Whether you use a service to explore ideas for branding your company or original artwork created by a professional design firm, it is best to make sure you have a legal right to include the information in your marketing. The last thing you want to do is breach a copyright while marketing your business or have to deconstruct your brand to remove a non-licensed image years later.