If you need free images but don’t want to risk copyright infringements then Flickr has thousands available to use commercially but check out the rules and follow the easy steps below.

1)

Click on the link to go to the Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/ and register to get a member account if you haven’t done so already. When you have your membership confirmed you need to log in.

2)

Then, in the search box,  type in your search key word and wait for Flickr to come up with the results. Once you have the images you must click on the “Advanced Search” option next to the “Search” button. This will then take you to a page showing several options so then scroll down the page until you come to “Creative Commons”.

3)

Place a tick in the box “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content”. Then tick the second box “Find content to use commercially” and also in the second tick box depending on what you plan to do with the images.  Finally, click on the “Search” box at the bottom of the page. This will then display Flickr free photos with Creative Commons in the results page for you to use on your commercial website. It is always a courtesy to place a credit link from your site to the owner of the picture, even though they haven’t stipulated this as a condition of use. See my image credit below!

Information regarding Creative Commons License.
The following lets you know if the owner of the material has stated which rights he would like to retain and which he is willing to forego.

Creative Commons involves 3 laws:

1) Non commercial – This is where you will not be allowed to use the material for any commercial usage. Personal use only.
2) No Derivatives – You are not allowed to alter or change any image at all.
3) Attributtion – Give the owner a credit, stating where the image came from and place a link to that persons members page.

Image credit to http://www.flickr.com/photos/justintosh/

Tweet This Post