Hi I need all car types images for my site. Where is the best place to get them ? Is it illegal to use the images in the Wikipedia website ? thank you
The two most popular ones are iStock, Fotolia. There's Getty Images, but their prices are a hell of a lot more. Too much, in my opinion. There are a lot of car pictures found here http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=cars&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi but the question is, which ones do the actual owners care if they are used or not? Hell, it's probably a safe bet that we do not know who owns what. I love this photo http://vwkombi.com/photos/volkscars/Images/Cars.jpg Who knows who actually owns that one. Everybody and their cousin can say they took that picture, but, who knows for sure? Then you have the really old pictures. The ones that were taken ten years back, and the owners have long since forgotten about them. If I needed car pictures, I would go ahead and use them. You could also give credit to where you found them. That's an option. I would steer clear from Wikipedia.
Wow! That actually made sense! I would like to add that there is such a thing as fair use. And there also is a court ruling in the US that says thumbnails created from images, are regarded as new images that are not held under the copyright of the original.
Fair use has a very limited scope and does not include the use of images or written works for another's commercial purposes. I assume you want car pictures for a site that makes you money (Adsense, product sales, advertising, etc.). Fair use is only acceptable in a few situations: journalism, criticism, commentary, teaching, scholarship and research. Additionally, when fair use is permissible, the doctrine only allows limited use of a work, not the use of the entire work. Fair use does not apply here, unless the original poster is using the images for education or news reporting/criticism purposes.
Thanks you all for the feedback I will have to delay this project until I got a way to find the images.
What's the case law on the thumbnail issue? An IP lawyer told me just the opposite - that a thumbnail is just a copy of the original made smaller and that even screenshots of a website would be considered infringement.
Until you find a way? Look at the stock photo sites under those keywords, open up your wallet, and buy the pictures. Many are under $10 each. Is it really that complicated?
There was a ruling a few years back, between an owner of an adult thumbnail gallery post versus the owner of the original images. The TGP owner won, due to the fact he just listed thumbnails that linked to pages hosted elsewhere. In that ruling it was stated that transforming the large pictures into a thumbnail, was change enough to warrant the term unique work, of which the plaintiff held no copyrights. It was a few years back but I will try to look up the specifics on that one.
While I haven't found the particular case I referred to (yet) These basically say the same: http://www.internationallawoffice.com/newsletters/detail.aspx?g=1873c6dd-8cb0-406c-83b4-a35fb3797ed1 http://news.cnet.com/2100-1025_3-1023629.html http://www.linksandlaw.com/decisions-3.htm Edit: Here we have the details: http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2002dltr0006.html
Thanks for the links, I didn't see that decision. One common theme this non-lawyer spotted though was the specific usage of "thumbnails by a search engine". Seems like the ruling probably does not currently apply to uses such as what I suspect the OP is talking about.
I think you should just visit on some of your city's famous Car Showrooms and take some snaps out of there, with their permission. What do you think?