"I found these great pictures on this site. It's on the internet so they're free, right?"
Actually, probably not. In fact if you can't see it explicitly stated in proximity to the picture, you should assume someone will require paying for you to use that image on your site. If in doubt it's always best to contact the photographer.
Sadly, there are tools that make it only too easy to indiscriminately harvest pictures from insecure sites. If you're using one of these you're almost certainly one step away from breaking the law depending on what you do next, once your hard disc is heaving with booty.
My own images are stored using the Photoshelter system. That's where the links on the right take you. They're safe. If you're a photographer with your own server you might want to think about blocking the harvesters via an .htaccess file. No, I don't know what that is either. Luckily, US based photographer David Brabyn does.
Tom Parkes is a London based corporate and editorial photographer
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