5 Big Reasons to Give Credit When Using Graphics

There are many graphic sites out there and each have different requirements for the use of their graphics. For most in the computer graphic community a link back to the site is what is demanded, for others the requirement may be unreasonable. But whatever the terms are, there are a few good reasons why you should give credit to the artist or web site when using graphics. Giving credit back to the web site or the artist will save you from alot of headaches in the long run and it will provided a trail for people to follow. Such trails become very useful in copyright disputes where finger point tends to get out of hand.

Giving credit to the artist of the graphic or the artist's web site will also help improve your image as a graphics site owner. It will help to build trust with your viewers and customers by letting them know which graphics you own the copyright to, and which graphics you are using through an agreement with an artist or graphic site.

image provided by Clipart.com

There are many ways to give credit to a web site or an artist. One way to give credit is shown from the image above or you can put something similar to it such as "photo permission granted by." There are 5 big reasons why you should give credit back to the artist or the web site.

Giving credit back to the artist or the web site will actually give you some protection. By giving credit to the artist or the site you are actually saying that you are not the main source of distribution of the image. It lets people know exactly where and who your images are coming from. All fingers will point at you in a copyright dispute when credit is not given. Giving credit allows original owners and people to easily trace the image back to the source.
It gives you some legal protection. For example: in many online copyright disputes, the people who are in violation of copyright law do not realize that they are in violation because they have obtained the image through a secondary source which is seemingly distributing the image in a legal manner. Many graphic artist from smaller graphic communities tend to go after the person aggressively and accuse them for stealing the image directly off the site. Sometimes they are right but most of the times they are wrong. Most of the copyright violations that are committed are committed because a secondary source is acting as if they are the original owner of the image. This causes many people to believe that they are getting the image from the original artist when if fact they are not.
Giving credit will increase the professional look of your site. Some graphic site owners may worry that if credit is given that it will drive traffic away from the site. As logical as it sounds this is not true. If you have great links from great artist on your site then people will be more likely to visit your site because you have good links on it. In this way your site will increase in traffic.
Giving credit shows a level of honesty and gives your viewers the feeling that you can be trusted. When viewers see that you give credit they will soon come to trust that if it doesn't have credit then it is either yours or credit wasn't required. They will believe this because you willing give credit for images that are not yours.
It's just the right thing to do. Doing the right thing in many areas can save you alot of headaches and give you alot of joy.