I was thinking about making a few new posts and adding images to them through searching Google images.

For example if I wanted to write about star wars and put a few images of some characters, planets, etc. on the post. I do have Google adsense on my site so I'd still make money from the site itself, but I don't think I would make anything off of the actual images themselves.

I don't want to break any laws here, so would I need to get approval from the copyright holder (such as lucasarts, or whoever), and pay them royalties?

How would I know whether they are in the public domain or not? And what about other sites that already have those images, are they technically committing copyright infringement?

In general, look on the page or on the site for information. A simple copyright notice in the footer would be enough to tell you "do not copy from us". If there is one, which the majority of sites do have, then you'd need their permissions, especially if you're going to make money out of it (adsense).

Using Star Wars images without permission is definitively copyright infringement. You probably won't get caught, but if you do, yes they can press charges.

Also, you don't have to make money on copyrighted material to get sued for it. Again, you probably won't get sued, but you could.

Alright thanks,
Does anyone here use copyrighted images on their site? Do you pay the original holders for using them? What would be the best way to get their permission, just send them an email asking for it?

(I'm not very familiar with the whole procedure, if it's even a plausible idea to consider.)

Originally Posted by jamestl2

Does anyone here use copyrighted images on their site? Do you pay the original holders for using them? What would be the best way to get their permission, just send them an email asking for it?

I do. This seems to be an unusual reply, but I get to use the copyrighted images because I make them. Which means the things I write about are determined by the images I can create. No European Alps or Alaskan Rockies for me yet. In your example, I might not be able to do a post about Star Wars ... but I'll find another topic I can make interesting.

I've also worked at Getty Images; think of that as a slider with two extremes. You can definitely pay royalties, and for Star Wars you might need to ... but even for $$$ stock there's a world of RF - that's royalty free - images.

The law really isn't concerned over whether or not money changes hands. Somebody owns the copyright, or the [exclusive] right to make copies. You either need that - and you can get it by creating the thing, by paying somebody on staff to create it as part of their job duties, you can buy it after the fact - or the permission of whoever owns it. You can pay for that permission, or it can be given freely; they both have equal weight under the law. As long as you have permission from the copyright holder, everything is right with the world.

A lot of people release their images into the public domain, or use a creative commons license, which can mean non commercial use only. A page with adsense is considered commercial use, in that the images are part of what draw in the people who click the ads that get you paid. Rule one: if there's doubt, keep looking. Two: Wikipedia is a good place to look. They force people to allow commercial use.

Keep in mind I'm not a lawyer. I'm a photographer.