How to not get sued

Congrats, reporters! You made it through election day. I’m writing this from rural Africa (Teyateyaneng, Lesotho, to be precise 🌍), so it’s been odd watching this all go down from afar. Hope everyone got a lot of sleep this weekend.

This week we’re going to learn how to not get sued. Hooray!

Probably, everybody here has used Google Images before. First off, because someone asked me this last week, giving credit to “Google Images” is NOT adequate attribution, for journalistic or legal purposes.

Google just added a feature where, on copyrighted images, you can see the name of the photographer so you can give them credit. That’s good.

Even better is the “Labeled for reuse” filter. Clicking Tools > Usage rights > ‘Labeled for reuse’ will only show you images that are not copyrighted.

As always, you should visit the website to make sure it is, in fact, not copyrighted. Don’t get sued by salty photogs, reporters!