In the wonderful world of media, there is a vast supply of content available to any and everybody to use to their heart’s content. This supply is limited, however, and restricted in many ways. When using other people’s work, the biggest obstacle is known as copyright. In most cases, it is illegal to distribute (and even make) copies of somebody’s work.
While I mostly plan to make my own works for my blog, there have already been and will likely be some situations in which making my own is not feasible. This is sure to be true for you as well when making your own website. For these cases, I have below 5 tips that should help you choose reusable content to use for your own website.
Tip 1: Make your own stuff.
Making your own images is possibly the safest way to stay away from any chance of copyright infringement. From the moment you create something and fix it in a tangible copy for the first time, you automatically become the copyright holder of said work.
Not everybody has the time or ability to make every single piece of media they need to carry out their task, so, while this is the safest route, it is rarely the most practical.
Tip 2: Create a stock media account.
Stock media websites, like shutterstock.com, give you access to a large supply of images that are eligible to use for any purpose you desire. This is a great tool if you don’t want/have time to make your own pictures, but there is a down side.
Many of these accounts require a monthly fee of around $30 to gain access to these bits of content. The prices really isn’t that bad for the wide range of reusable content, but it might be enough to warrant searching for a cheaper (FREE) alternative.
Tip 3: Creative Commons is fantastic.
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization dedicated to building a globally-accessible public commons of knowledge and culture. This is where you would go if you wanted to share your work while also securing it as your own. It is also a wonderful place to go to find digital content to use for your own projects.
This is a pretty safe option because it clearly details what type of license each individual work, minimizing your chances of using the wrong thing and getting in trouble for it. I won’t be going into the six categories of licenses offered in this blog, but the most suitable licenses to fit your needs are the Attribution license and the Attribution-NoDerivs license. These are works that are available to use both commercially and non-commercially.
IMPORTANT: Regardless of what creative commons license a person has on their work, it is imperative that you give credit to the copyright holder.
Tip 4: Find public domain content.
While these can be harder to come by, public domain content is most-often the safest route to take when reusing media. These works have no copyright restrictions and can be modified and used both commercially and non-commercially without any need of giving credit to the creator.
There are a couple issues with searching for public domain content on the web. One is that people are not likely to put their work in the public domain. This would make it impossible to gain any source of income from said work.
That being said, you are not very likely to find a hefty sum of public domain images and videos that suit your necessities. The other issue is that, even when you do find something that matches your idea, it will likely be sub-par in quality. I am not saying that no skilled artists put their work in the public domain, but it is highly unlikely.
Tip 5: Contact the creator.
The best way to go about reusing other people’s content is by simply contacting the creator/copyright holder and ask for permission to use their work.
To obtain permission, there are a few easy steps to take.
- Determine who the copyright holder is.
- Contact the copyright holder.
- Obtain permission to use the work how you intend to.
Sometimes obtaining this permission can require you to pay the copyright holder a fee and sometimes they will just turn you down, but having to pay them or being told not to use it is a much smarter route than using something and finding out later that you are being sued for using somebody else’s intellectual property.
In following these tips, you will be able to add content to any website, blog, or other project you may have without the worry of copyright infringement, intellectual theft, and lawsuits. Happy blogging!
Sir Cinema 
