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Copyright law basics for digital signage

Digital signage blogger offers a quick primer on how to avoid copyright infringement on your digital signs.

February 25, 2015 by Laurie Marshall — Writer, Contractor

Finding high quality images for display on digital signage is not always easy for someone who is busy running a business. You may not have the time to spend searching, or you may just not be interested in learning the ins and outs of good lighting and framing a shot. Lucky for you, you don't have to!

Thanks to the World Wide Web, there are literally billions of images available for you to use on your website, in your fliers or in your digital signage. But there are also restrictions in place that protect the owner and creators of these images. Copyright law makes it very clear that you cannot use images that are protected by a copyright owned by an artist, individual or company without getting specific, explicit permission — usually in the form of a release document.

It's tempting to simply Google an image, right-click and save it to your hard drive, but it is a huge risk for your business, both financially and in terms of your reputation.

Some images have a copyright notice attached or linked underneath the image, but this is not required by law, and many more do not. If you aren't 100-percent positive, keep looking. (Here is a great video from the Copyright Clearance Center that presents the basics of copyright law in a way that won't put you to sleep.)

There are several types of licenses out there that could be attached to images you want to use, so some copyright law basics might help you narrow it down to what's best for you. Here are some definitions, from least to most restrictive:

Public Domain images are those that are no longer covered by copyright laws because of their age, or which the owner of the image has allowed to be used by the public without any cost or permissions attached.

Creative Commons refers to several types of sub-licenses. Some let you use the image without changing it, others allow use as long as you give attribution to the original source/owner, or allow it to be re-sized within specific guidelines. Be sure to be clear which form of creative commons the image you want to use falls under before using it.

Royalty-Free images are not images that can be used free-of-charge! Royalty-Free simply means that after you pay for the item initially, you do not pay for each individual use. You can pay one fee and use it as many times as you want.

Rights-Managed means that an image can be used a specific number of times for a set fee. Once the image has been used that agreed-upon number of times, an additional fee needs to be paid to remain in compliance with the agreement.

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