I’m doing a website for a rare breed of cats and need pictures of them. They live in China – so there’s no way of taking pictures. There are plenty of pictures of cats on the internet, and I know it’s very easy to swipe the pics and put them on my site – but I want to do things the legal way. Is there a way (besides asking the owners of these websites for permission) to obtain pictures of these cats? In other words, could there be royalty free photo sites I can use? And if they are – what if they don’t have pics of this particular breed of cat?
Royalty Free does not mean "free of cost". You would have to search sites like istockphoto for images, but something this specific may be hard to find. You need permission to use any photo you did not take yourself. There might be cat forums where someone who owns this breed might be willing to take a picture and grant you permission to use without charge - or perhaps a small usage fee would work.