What is Rock Solid Info's Creative Commons Media Guide?
Rock Solid Info's Creative Commons Media Guide is the Internet's largest compilation of sites offering free photos. It's taken a while to discover and vet these 319 websites for you. We have visited them all. We've eliminated the duplicate and/or redirected sites, created our own blacklist of dangerous sites and done whatever we can to provide you with an incomparable resource for Public Domain and Creative Commons Zero images. The Guide is a constant work in progress. We'll update it a few times a year to keep it current.
Images are more important than ever before. They help create engagement with your visitors. Pictures, videos, graphics, fonts, and elements, like arrows and buttons, all contribute to creating your unique look and feel. Good design choices go a long way toward determining whether your visitors enjoy their time on your site or not.
Without a doubt, your message is the most important component of your site. But using a powerful picture helps to create a good first impression and enhances your story during the critical first few seconds of a page view.
So Why Did We Create The Guide?
Rock Solid Info is a companion site for Will Adams' Rock Solid Blogs. We do Freelance WordPress Development and Consulting. After 12 years, we felt it was time to give something back to our wonderful clients and to you, our visitor. So creating this guide to free images and other resources made sense to us. Here's why...
- One of the most frustrating and time-consuming tasks content marketers, bloggers, and businesses have to do today is finding high-quality images to publish on their websites. You could go buy stock images at sites like Getty Images, Shutterstock, Dreamstime and others, but paying for images gets expensive if you use a lot of them.
- And if you're just starting out or on a tight budget, you might not be able to afford high-quality images and other media to use. Even if you have a decent budget, you might feel like money could be better spent on promotion, so free pictures help to that end.
Did you know most images created before 1923 are copyright free? They are said to be in the Public Domain. After 1923, usage rights are not so cut and dry. In fact, using copyrighted images opens up a can of worms for a publisher.
Use the wrong image and you could hear from the image owners lawyer. When he tells you to 'cease and desist', just do it. You won't win the lawsuit. Go find another picture. Before you do, it's good business to learn about the different Creative Commons Licenses and Copyrights.
This'll be time well spent because once you get schooled on what you can and can't-do with other people's creations, you won't have to worry about the legality of your use of an image, video, or music.
If you have the skill and the time, producing your own original images is the safest way to go. Then, there's no doubt about ownership of an image.
Please note that Rock Solid Info's Creative Commons Media Guide is not an affiliate for any other photo/image website at this time. We are affiliates for other products we use and believe in, like SiteGround, Beaver Builder, StudioPress and others. If you buy something from a link on this site, Thank You. We have bought, used, and trust every resource we promote so you can buy with confidence.
So let your visual journey begin. Explore the largest collection of Creative Commons Zero sites on the Internet.
Always be sure to double check the license for the image you want to use. Following the law is easy and lets you sleep well knowing you won't be getting any 'cease and desist' notices. We think you'll like the guide. If you do, please share it with your tribe.
