Seattle, WA asked in Business Law and Copyright for Oregon

Q: Can I use pictures from royalty free image websites on Business Products such as Tshirts or Greeting cards?

There are quite a few websites online that have "Royalty free/Copyright free" Images for you to use for commercial purposes with your business. I'm looking to use some of the images for a small business that will produce stickers, Tshirts, Greeting cards etc. Although these websites say they are copyright and royalty free (including "free to use for commercial use"), I am still concerned due to some of the images being characters from TV or movies. I would like to confirm that if I use a picture from these type of sites such as pixababy.com, pngtree.com, toppng.com, that I indeed would be well within my rights to sell products with these pictures on them for small business commercial use without issue.

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1 Lawyer Answer
Mr. Michael O. Stevens
Mr. Michael O. Stevens
Answered
  • Intellectual Property Lawyer
  • Hillsboro, OR
  • Licensed in Oregon

A: The problem with websites like that are that often times the images are uploaded by users and they just say they are copyright free. I would suggest going with a more reputible source that licenses them so you potentially have recourse if someone claim copyright infringment against you.

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