Hello. I'm new to the Photoshop forums, but I've been using Photoshop for about 8 years now and have decided to start doing some commercial freelancing. I was curious as to how other professionals deal with the internet and source material.
I routinely grab random images off of the Google Image search and use them as source material for many of my own projects. I try to steer clear of obviously copyrighted images, but lots of images online seem to be in a fuzzy legal zone that I'm not sure how to navigate. (Say, if I wanted to use the little pattern of blue dots under the "PhotoshopForums.com" logo)
For example, I was making a birthday card for one of my friends who likes a certain player in the NFL, so I just googled that player and took his face to use in the card. No doubt that the original image was used in a magazine, television, or something. So if I was to actually commercially sell that card I made to a client, is that breaking the law?
Also, does it vary depending on the degree that I change the images? For example, if no one can recognize the original image, is it fine? I doubt it...but I'm not sure.
So, what's the normal practice in commercial graphic work? Thanks for your time! |
