The topic came up the other night about images and whether it’s right to use images found on Google Images. My opinion on this subject is that it’s never right to take an image unless you are following it’s Creative Commons License. And if a license can’t be found, then you should ask the image owner whether or not you can use that image on your site.
I view taking an image from someone else’s site without permission or license as an act of stealing. Whether that person made the work, bought the image or found it on a free open source image site like sxc.hu, it’s their image and not yours. Don’t be a thief! Pony up a few bucks and go over to a royalty free image site if you need a high quality image for your blog.
If you want to know why most bloggers don’t make much money, this is a root cause of that. Most bloggers look for the cheap or free way to do everything no matter who they are stealing from. If someone made something you want to use, give them a buck for it or ask if you can use it. It only takes a minute to write a short email to them.
I would love to hear what you think about this subject, as it seems there are many differing opinions. Do you think it’s ok to use images that you don’t have a right to use because they are on the Internet?
One thing that I have been trying to explain is just how customizable the Thesis WP Theme really is. From personal blogs to sites for businesses, the Thesis WP Theme can be customized for almost anything. I especially like it for small business owners due to the easy use of WordPress.
Many web developers have made tens of thousands of dollars fooling business owners into paying big bucks for static sites that don’t offer any type of content management system. They do this because every time content needs to be changed or added, they can charge an inflated amount to do the work. Content management systems like WordPress make it easier for to edit content, making it simpler to make easy changes to content and cutting out the extra expenses.
That’s why the only sites that I design now are on the WordPress CMS (Content Management System) using the Thesis WP Theme, which I customize to make it look unique. My latest design for TheWatchmanSolutions.com (Crane Inspection Tool) was built using the Thesis WP Theme. Actually, if you look through my portfolio, they are all the same theme.
The main thing that I want to get across to business owners is that it shouldn’t cost 5k-10k just for putting together a website. For that much money, you better be getting the whole shabang with SEO and all.
