hi, i'm new at internet marketing, and in web development in general to the point, it's illegal the use of "random" images found on google for "commercial activities"? as example, if i make a video to promote my site, and i use images of random people found on google, can i get in trouble? (maybe it's the stupidest question in the earth but.. i neet to know)
No, that's not a stupid question. The stupid questions are the ones not asked or the ones where DLM makes fun of you for. That said, if you use random images found on the web and use it for commercial activities, it's go against copyright infringement. It all depends on the owner of the images. Or, get permission from the owner of the image. But if it's an image that's found everywhere on the web (without knowing who's the original author is), that's probably fine. To be safe, just google "free stock images" and use those kind of images. They're free to use or you can purchase stock images.
Not a stupid question. In fact, there have been far more stupid questions asked around here recently. Technically - yes, you can get in trouble. It's not "illegal" per say, but you could potential sued by the image's rightful owner (although the risk of this is often very small). You can try using Flickr and search for images that have been designated as available to be used as commercial content or visit a stock image website (there are many out there) and spend some money to buy the rights to an image. If you find a photo somewhere you want to use on your site, if you contact the image's owner he or she can give you permission to use the image... So basically, use random images at your own risk. There are "safer" ways to find pictures to use as I described above. Hope that helps. [note - I wrote this while webtester posted his response above, but as you can see we both had similar ideas]