Story authors

I was wondering what the site policy is for images used on the stories section? I always ensure that I search for images that are copyright free and use those as the cover image of my stories. However, I have also seen many with images that clearly have watermarks on them. I just wanted to know whether this is an issue or not? Am I being too cautious?

Hi,

So as part of our website rules...

Rule 9. Respect Copyright

Please respect the copyright of others when uploading content. If you know who the owner is, make sure you have their permission. If you don't know the owner but you think it may upset someone - don't use it!

If someone has protected the copyright with a watermark, this should not be used.

Thanks,

c00kie
FF Team

Thanks for this.

Absolutely, it's part of my workflow to head to stock sites to see what I can license under $10 (alternatively, people can ask permission to use from content creators, people can search for public domain imagery, or shoot their own content!).

Technically with Copyright laws, it is still not fair game / DMCA-friendly to post or publish watermarked photos, or any copyrighted photos that you don't have a license or permission to use. even if it's a free story (non-commercial), the copyright holder, if they have a software for scraping the internet for their photo, can still subject the author who used it to a DMCA-strike and now if I'm not mistaken, a small claims suit.

As an author, it's easy for me to empathize with content creators like photographers who own their copyright and who want to derive some benefit - credit or some kind of fee, for their works, as also, we authors do.