Copyright, Fair Use, Public Domain
What you need to know about online images
What is Copyright and Fair Use?
Copyright of an image is a federal law of the U.S that protects original works of authorship. Copyright is an automatic right and doesn't require the author to file special paperwork as in this case a trademark or picture and patent. Fair use is the doctrine that brief excerpts of copyright material may, under certain circumstances, be quoted for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder.
Copyright symbol
This lets people know they can't use an image or work without giving the author or authors credit.
Copyright Infringement
This is something that appears when viewing a movie. It lets people know if you make illegal copies of a DVD and sell them it is punishable by law and could result up to 5 years of prison or a $250,000 fine or both.
Don't break the law
If you don't give credit to the right sources or don't give credit at all you can go to prison.
How do you know if an image is copyrighted and what is public domain?
You should assume every image out there is copyrighted. Just because the picture didn't have a copyright symbol or a c with a circle around it, is not an excuse. Most works published before March 1, 1989 do not require a copyright notice. Search engines are doing their best to provide copyright notice information if it applies, but if it is not there in your search, you shouldn't assume there is none. Public domain pictures are images being available to the public and are not subject to copyright. You can use these images in any way and in most cases you don't have to provide attribution or credit.