Now that you have a business idea, maybe a few coaching or consulting customers under your belt you are looking into setting up your website.

You want to do it yourself and sign up to a website builder (hopefully like Heroic), download a template and off you go.

The first thing you then realise is that you need nice crisp and professional looking pictures, but you're not a photographer and your phone is old and your camera lens is cracked!

So, you think why not look at Google Images and copy and past some nice photos into your website.

Bad idea.

You see, there is a little something called copyright law that protects musicians, writers, photographers and other artists from people using their work without paying them for the privilege.

This means that every image on websites is copyrighted and you need to be aware that it is now very easy to track whether an image is being used without a licence.

Indeed, software can now track the use of copyrighted images all over the web to check whether they are used lawfully or not. So be careful because you could get fined and in some circumstances be held criminally liable.

To illustrate what copyright is, take this example: if you create a little scribble on a piece of paper and call it art, you are entitled to copyright protection over it. It's as simple as that.

If someone likes your scribble and wants to use it on mugs, T-shirts, key chains or a website, you can ask for money in exchange. This is called a licence.

So, if you copy a nice photo from the net and use it on your website without paying a proper licence for it, you'll be in breach of copyright law and that can cost you.

So what pictures can you use on your website?

You can pretty much use any picture that you have taken yourself using your old camera or phone, except of course if the picture is of something that is itself copyrighted. For example, a picture of a painting, sculpture or sometimes even a famous building for that matter. I know, it's a bit of pain in the back side.

If you want to use professional looking pictures you can buy copyrighted images from stock image websites. This gives you a right to use the image on your website or to do other things with it depending on the licence scope. Some of the licence prices can be very high and it can very quickly add up.

This is why at Heroic we did the heavy lifting for you and have negotiated image rights for you.

Heroic customers have access to thousands of professional images that are either free or for a one time fee (starting at $2). These images are directly downloaded into your account and can be dragged and dropped into your template website. It's that easy!

If you want to see what these images look like, register for free now!

Be Heroic!