Who Actually Owns That Image? What Every Client Needs to Know About Copyright
I get asked about this more than people expect: “Can I just use this photo I found online?” The honest answer is almost always no — and getting it wrong can be an expensive mistake, whether you’re launching a new website or sending a brochure to print.
Every image that appears on your website, in your brochure, or on your printed signage needs to be one you actually have the right to use. It doesn’t matter how you found it or how easy it was to save. If you can’t show where an image’s rights came from, you shouldn’t be publishing it.
The three legitimate ways to get an image
When a client commissions me to build a website or design a printed publication, I make sure every image falls into one of these three categories:
1. You took the photograph yourself
If it’s your own photo, taken on your own camera or phone, you own it. Simple.
2. Your web developer or designer took it
If I (or another professional you’ve commissioned) shoot the photography as part of the project, that’s covered by our agreement — you’re getting a licence to use those images as part of the work.
3. It was licensed from a legitimate image library
Stock libraries such as Adobe Stock, Shutterstock or iStock let you buy or subscribe to a proper licence for an image. Keep a record of where each licensed image came from — if anyone ever questions its use, you’ll want to be able to show it.
What you can’t do is right-click and save an image from Google, a competitor’s site, or somewhere on social media, then publish it as your own. That photograph belongs to someone — a photographer, a business, a stock library — and using it without permission is a copyright infringement, however innocent it feels.
What about AI-generated images?
This is the newer question, and it’s one worth taking seriously. Using an AI tool to generate an image for your website or marketing material can feel like a shortcut around the licensing problem — but it opens up a different set of questions that are still being settled.
My understanding is that if you create an image yourself through an AI program, using your own prompt, the resulting image is generally treated as your own to use. But this is a fast-moving area of copyright law, the position varies between AI tools and jurisdictions, and it hasn’t been fully tested. Before you rely on AI-generated imagery for anything important — a brand identity, a printed publication, a paid advertising campaign — it’s worth getting proper legal advice rather than assuming it’s automatically safe.
Why this matters
This isn’t a hypothetical risk. Only this week, one of our clients was contacted directly by an image licensing authority claiming they had breached the terms of a photograph’s licence and infringed the photographer’s copyright — and seeking redress for it. Because that image had been downloaded from a legitimate online image library and we held the licence, we were able to hand over the proof straight away and the client was fully protected. Without that paperwork, it could have been a very different, and far more costly, conversation.
Copyright holders and stock libraries do actively monitor for unauthorised use, and claims can arrive long after a website or brochure has gone live. It’s far cheaper to get the sourcing right at the start than to deal with a copyright claim, a takedown request, or a legal letter after the fact.
When you’re briefing a project — whether that’s a new website or a printed publication — ask your designer or developer directly: where is each image coming from, and can you prove you have the right to use it? A good studio will be able to answer that without hesitation.
If you’re planning a website or print project and want to make sure your imagery is properly sourced and licensed from day one, get in touch — it’s exactly the kind of detail I sort out as standard on every project.