Building a Web Site For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Getting Graphics — for Free!

Most of us aren’t artists, and even if I know an artist or three, most of them spend their time mucking about with paintbrushes and canvases. Many aren’t really comfortable with electronic media. So how do average people who want nice graphics for their Web sites get them? The good news is that excellent graphics are all over the place. Graphics are an integral part of the World Wide Web, and the quality of those graphics has improved tremendously from the early days of the Internet.

Heeding copyrights and credits

Every Web browser is a funnel for graphics. Any image that you can see in it, you can download and put on your site. However, you need to consider a few factors before you use graphics. Yes, you can grab every image file that you find. But you can’t necessarily use them all without consequences.

When an artist creates an image, that artist owns the copyright to that image. Just like the word says, that gives the artist — and the artist alone — the right to make copies, electronic or otherwise. The artist can give other people permission to make copies of the image — or even sell the copyright to someone — but unless he or she does so, the artist retains total control over the image.

Never take legal advice from anyone who spells copyright as copywrite.

One of the few ways in which someone can lose a copyright is by stating that he’s placing ...