Are you following the law when it comes to using images on your Orlando web design? You might not know that you’re committing copyright infringement by using photos found online. Be very careful with that lest you want your business shut down because of your negligence.

The first step to determining the kind of images you should use on your website is to understand what copyright is. Copyright is the protection given to creative works in fixed form, which includes blog posts, photos, videos, motion pictures, and other pieces of digital content. You don’t need to file for copyright. The moment your work is posted online, that creation is presumed to be yours. The symbol © is no longer required to determine the content is legally yours or not.

What does copyright mean in photos? It means that no one can use the photo without the permission or consent of the creator of the image. In terms of Orlando web design, that stops the designer and developer to use any kind of images that are not free for use. While many websites publish stock photos for all web designers to use, some still wrongfully think that images found on social media and Google are for everyone.

They’re not. Rather, these images, unless otherwise specified, are protected the moment they get posted on the internet.

So, how does that affect your web design? The truth is, you should not depend on other websites to create images for your web design. It’s the 21st century. You have a mobile phone that snaps photos with 100 megapixels. You can snap an image or two for your website to use. That shouldn’t be too hard if you’re well invested in it.

Original photos, after all, are still the best option for web design. The least you can do for your web visitors and clients is to snap real photos of your products and actual service sessions. They need to know that you are legitimately offering them the best products/services. They will only be able to judge that based on the photos you provide on your website.

Always be careful when using images for your Orlando web design. You could be facing a lawsuit for posting images, videos, and content that have been copied from another website. Besides, copied content is not great for SEO ranking. Google’s algorithm is programmed to deny ranking to websites with copied content.