3 Important social media considerations.
How do you keep out of legal hot water on social media? This is a big topic and I’ve got an entire course on this, but I thought I would just share a couple of quick tips with you. One of the big social media no-nos, is making sure that you don’t infringe somebody’s copyright. which is where you get an image off Google, or off one of those so-called free image websites, and I’ve spoken a lot about how a free image website does not mean you’re never going to have to pay, you might still be liable for copyright infringement if you use a free image website.
So my tip here is, don’t use a so-called free image, do not use one just off Google. Only use images that you’ve actually paid for and you’ve got the correct license to be allowed to use it on social media, so check the licensing agreement. Or perhaps use photographs that you’ve taken yourself, otherwise you could find yourself on the sticky end of a copyright infringement case.
What about sharing a post or retweeting a post? Well, you’re fine there, because if the original person puts that post online and you shared it, you haven’t actually copied the image. Sharing it is fine, but don’t copy and paste the original post, which actually happened to me once. Somebody took my original post, copied and pasted it, then reposted it as their own. That’s not allowed and it amounts to copyright infringement, so that’s tip number one, don’t post somebody else’s stuff as yours. Tip number two is, don’t use free images or images that you don’t actually have a license for.
There are many other tips, it’s a whole course worth of material. If you want to know more about how to keep out of legal trouble and legal hot water on social media, please sign up for my course. There’s quite a bit to it, but once you know the basics, you should be fine. My name is Cathryn Warburton and I am The Legal Lioness who works to keep you out of legal hot water.
