Know your rights

How do you protect your images online? Joshua Waller explains everything you need to know about image copyright

- Joshua Waller

How do you manage your images, and protect your copyright? Copyright is designed to protect your work so that you control who uses your images and, where applicable, get paid for your work. It’s worth noting that whilst copyright laws vary from country to country, this guide should still apply to most countries.

Image copyright is to do with the legal ownership of the image or photo, and it’s safe to assume that every image you see online is copyrighted, unless otherwise stated! The person who has created the image owns the rights to copy or reproduce the image, and this is something that comes with every image, whether the image has been registered with a copyright office or organisation.

1. How can you find out if someone is infringing your copyright?

You can use Google Images for reverse image search. This example image is from Unsplash, and as such, has been (legally) used on a number of different websites. Copyright infringement is when your images or work are used without permission; to see if your images are being used by other people online, you can use something called a ‘reverse image search’ to see if the same image has been posted on other websites. To use reverse image search to find copied images, go to Google Images (images.google.com) and upload your image. Google will search the internet to see where the image appears and from here, you’ll be able to see if it’s on other people’s websites.

2. What to do if you find your image being used by other people online