Vital Imagery Blog

Teachers and educators will hold students to a high standard when it comes to plagiarism, but unfortunately they haven’t been as strict about copyright/trademark laws. Students have been encouraged to find photographs and artwork online to include in their presentations and projects.

Plagiarism: is the act of taking someone else’s work and presenting it as your own without giving credit/citation to the original creator.

Copyright: is the exclusive right given to the creator of a creative work.  The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form

If you use someone else’s creative work, like music, photographs, or illustrations, it can be illegal. You can possibly be breaking copyright and/or trademark laws.

Here are two recent articles about legal action taken on schools
for breaking copyright laws:

Houston school sued for copyright infringement

German school sued photo copyright 

Protect yourself, your students and your school from copyright infringement bu…

With the advances in technology and the internet, it has become increasingly easier to sell products, such as, t-shirts, mugs and other easily made products from your home. Some people think that you can just search for images on Google, download them and add it to your products to start making money or part of your corporate branding.  In most cases this is ILLEGAL! You would most likely be breaking copyright and/or trademark laws. Let's face it, artists deserve to be paid for their creations and photography. You wouldn't want to give away your products for free and they shouldn't have to either.

In order to be sure you are not breaking any copyright/trademark laws:

1. Source a reputable image provider that works with artists and pays them a royalty for you. Check out these sites for affordable licensing and subscription/individual image pricing options:

- iCLIPART.com
- iPHOTOS.com
- AnimationFactory.com
- Clipart.com

2. Contact image providers and be very clear in what yo…