Use Caution When Sharing Images on Social Media or Your Website

It’s very easy these days to share images you find inter­est­ing on social media or your com­pa­ny blog. In fact, it can be a lit­tle TOO easy… If you are using images for busi­ness pur­pos­es, you just need to be espe­cial­ly care­ful about what you are shar­ing and make sure you have the prop­er license. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I have my own cau­tion­ary tale from this past month to share… I hope this helps pre­vent you from any sort of pho­to licensing/​usage headaches! 

Are You Allowed To Share Houzz Photos?

Houzz encour­ages you to share their images with your social media out­lets and even your com­pa­ny blog. They make it super easy. All you need to do is find the image you want to share, click the share but­ton, and decide where you want to place the image. If you are shar­ing it on your web­site, you can use their embed code (it’s eas­i­er than it sounds, and as a bonus it dis­plays all the prop­er pho­to attri­bu­tion on its own, includ­ing a link back to the image on Houzz!). I reached out to Houzz to make sure it was legal and safe. They assured me it was total­ly fine! What could go wrong then, right? What they did not tell me is that they, Houzz, take zero lia­bil­i­ty or own­er­ship of all Houzz pho­tos uploaded by their com­mu­ni­ty. So a user on Houzz is agree­ing that they are the own­er of the images they upload to their pro­file, but Houzz real­ly is just tak­ing their word for it.

Noth­ing In Life Is Free

Here is the deal: you are free to share Houzz images on your site or social media outlets.  How­ev­er, if the image you want to share was not legal­ly uploaded by the Houzz user, you actu­al­ly will be liable if there ever is an infringe­ment case. I know this because it hap­pened to a client of mine this year. There is no way in the world to know if any pic­ture was legal­ly owned and uploaded by a Houzz user. So my con­clu­sion: do not share Houzz pho­tos on your web­site. It is not worth the risk of hav­ing to pay an infringe­ment fee.

What Now?

It is bet­ter to be cau­tious in today’s dig­i­tal age. Use your own pho­tos and videos. There are plen­ty of ambu­lance-chas­ing com­pa­nies out there trolling around to find loop­holes, hop­ing to get a few bucks from busi­ness­es. If you are writ­ing a blog and just don’t have the right image to use, pay for the rights to one from a rep­utable source. For exam­ple, I pay a month­ly fee for access to stock pho­tos. It can get expen­sive because if I don’t use a cer­tain num­ber of pho­tos each month, I still pay a min­i­mum fee. How­ev­er, it is a way to pro­tect my com­pa­ny and the com­pa­nies that hire A David Cre­ation. It pays to play it safe! TIP: Let all your employ­ees know that they can only post their own pho­tos and videos tak­en with com­pa­ny devices (not their per­son­al phones). They can­not upload or share images or videos with­out the prop­er licenses.