Have you ever taken a picture off of another website thinking that it was legal…or not giving it any thought at all?
Taking images from other websites is serious business. 
You might not think about it until you get a bill in the mail for the use of that image…and it’s not cheap. Usually you have to pay the penalty AND take the image down.
I’ve received several calls over the years from people that have done just that and got caught. This the hitch, the photo companies say in the letter not knowing the copyright laws is no excuse. If your not sure of the ins and outs of the copyright issues that can arise, hire a professional to walk you through it.
People believe if they find it in Google images it’s OK to use. It’s not. Google is just pulling images from the web and they cover themselves by saying this image may be copyrighted. Be careful…if Google gets pulled into a lawsuit about a copyrighted image, guess who is going to pay for all those high priced Google lawyers? You guessed it, you are!
There are many photo websites out there that offer pretty cheap stock photos and they have a great selection.
So bottom line, if you don’t know if an image is copyrighted, DO NOT USE IT. Save yourself a lot of trouble and just buy your own photo. It will save you lot of trouble and $$MONEY.