We are busting legal myths in small business, the myth we are busting today is one I came across on social media, it’s to do with orphan images. The poster had asked when do I know, when I can use images from Google, and the person who answered had said there’s a thing called orphan copyright, or orphan images and if somebody hasn’t put their name to the image, you can copy it because it’s been abandoned and it’s an orphan image.
Well, that’s a load of rubbish, a complete myth, it doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as orphan images, any image will have copyright, when it is created copyright comes into force automatically. Copyright will expire 70 year after the death of the creator of that image, so if it’s an ancient image, like the hieroglyphs on the pyramids, we’re pretty sure those guys have been dead for more than 70 years.
So, you can go out, take a photo and they can’t sue you. If I take a photo and you copy my photo, watch out, because I’ve got copyright in that photograph. So there’s no such thing as orphan images. I don’t have to put my name on my photograph, there doesn’t have to be any easy way for you to find who owns that image. My tip for you is to assume any image out there, unless it’s really old, has got copyright in it, and to not use it and instead create your own.
So there’s no such thing as orphan images, we are busting legal myths to protect your business and to give you the lifestyle that you deserve. My name is Cathryn Warburton and if you want to see more of these legal myth busting videos, go to my website, legallioness.com.
