Using someone else's photos, music or video online

How the law usually works

Copyright. The person who creates an original photo, song, recording, or video usually owns copyright unless it was assigned, created for an employer under applicable rules, or licensed to someone else. Copyright can restrict copying, downloading, editing, displaying, performing, communicating, and distributing the work online.

Finding an image or video through Google, social media, or a public website does not usually make it free to reuse. Giving credit is helpful in some situations, but credit alone does not replace permission.

Permission may come from:

• A direct licence from the copyright owner.
• A stock-media licence or Creative Commons licence.
• Terms attached to a platform’s sharing or embedding feature.
• A contract, employment arrangement, or assignment.
• A legal exception such as fair use or fair dealing.

A licence may limit the website, audience, duration, editing, territory, or commercial use. “Royalty-free” generally means the licence has no additional royalty for specified uses; it does not necessarily mean unrestricted use.

Fair use and fair dealing. In the United States, fair use can sometimes cover criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or parody. Courts commonly consider the purpose, nature of the work, amount used, and effect on the market. There is no automatic percentage or number of seconds that is always safe.

Canada, England and Wales, and Australia generally use narrower, specified fair-dealing exceptions. The particular purpose matters, such as criticism or review, reporting current events, education, research, or parody. A use that might be fair use in the United States may not qualify elsewhere.

Privacy and publicity. Copyright permission does not necessarily give permission to show a person’s face, private activity, home, medical information, or other personal information. A person may have privacy, misuse-of-private-information, data-protection, or publicity rights depending on the place and circumstances. Public figures do not automatically lose all privacy rights.

Using someone’s image to suggest they endorse a product, service, political message, or cause can create additional problems. Commercial use and use involving children, intimate material, health information, or location data usually deserve particular caution.

Defamation and harassment. A photograph, caption, edit, soundtrack, or video can be defamatory if it communicates a false statement or implication that harms someone’s reputation. Context matters, including whether viewers would understand the post as fact, opinion, satire, or a misleading implication.

Repeated unwanted posting, threats, publication of intimate images, or disclosure of private information may breach criminal or civil laws. If there is an immediate threat or danger, contact emergency services first.

Platform rules. Social-media and hosting services often have copyright complaints, privacy reporting, impersonation, harassment, and intimate-image reporting systems. Their rules may remove material even when a legal claim is uncertain, or leave material online even when you may have a legal claim. A platform’s internal process does not replace a court order or other legal remedy.

Common processes

1. Identify the material and the people involved. People commonly save the post’s URL, username, date, screenshots, captions, comments, and any evidence of sharing or downloading. They also identify the creator, copyright owner, person shown, and account operator. Screenshots should not be edited in a way that hides relevant context.

1. Check ownership and permission. They review the original source, licence terms, employment or client agreements, and any messages granting permission. A person who appears in a photograph may not own its copyright, while the photographer may not have unlimited authority to use a recognizable person’s image.

1. Assess the proposed use. The risk often increases if the material is copied in full, edited deceptively, used commercially, placed in advertising, or posted publicly. Linking to the original, using an authorized embed, or using a licensed substitute may create fewer copyright concerns than downloading and re-uploading the file, although privacy and platform issues can remain.

1. Ask for permission or removal. A copyright owner may send a written licence request or takedown request. A person shown may request removal, correction, anonymization, or deletion where a privacy or harassment rule applies. The request usually identifies the exact content, explains the concern, and preserves a copy of the request.

1. Use the platform’s reporting process. People commonly use the service’s copyright, privacy, impersonation, harassment, or intimate-image form. Copyright complaints often require a good-faith statement, identification of the work, contact details, and a declaration of authority. False or exaggerated complaints can create separate problems.

1. Consider a formal legal notice or claim. If informal steps fail, a rights holder may send a solicitor’s or lawyer’s letter, seek an injunction, request damages or an account of profits, or bring a claim. The available remedy depends on the legal right involved and the country or state.

1. Preserve evidence and avoid escalation. People commonly keep original files, licence records, messages, analytics, and a timeline. They avoid threats, repeated contact, doxxing, retaliatory posting, or altering evidence. If criminal conduct, stalking, or immediate danger is involved, emergency services or law enforcement may be appropriate.

Deadlines and time limits

Copyright, privacy, defamation, data-protection, and personal-injury claims can each have different limitation periods. Defamation deadlines are often comparatively short, sometimes around one year in the United States, England and Wales, Canada, and Australia, but state, provincial, territorial, and factual differences are important.

Copyright claims commonly have longer limitation periods, but the rules differ by jurisdiction and may depend on when the infringement occurred or was discovered. Platform reporting has its own practical deadlines, and some services remove material only while an account or post remains identifiable.

A continuing online publication does not always restart every legal deadline. People commonly confirm the applicable period with the court or a licensed attorney where they live before relying on an old post, delayed discovery, or a later re-publication.

Documents that usually matter

• The original file, URL, account name, and timestamps.
• Screenshots or screen recordings showing the full context.
• Copyright registration, source files, contracts, assignments, and licences.
• Creative Commons or stock-library terms in effect when the material was used.
• Consent forms, model releases, employment agreements, and client instructions.
• Messages requesting permission, removal, correction, or licensing.
• Evidence of sales, audience reach, advertising, or reputational harm.
• Platform decisions, complaint numbers, and account records.
• Police reports or safety records where threats, stalking, or abuse are involved.

How it differs by jurisdiction

United States. Federal copyright law includes fair use and a notice-and-takedown system for qualifying online service providers. State law may add publicity, privacy, consumer-protection, harassment, or defamation claims. State anti-SLAPP laws can affect claims arising from speech on public issues, and their protections vary substantially.

England and Wales. Copyright exceptions are generally framed as fair dealing rather than broad fair use. Defamation law includes statutory requirements concerning serious harm and available defences, but online publication, identification, and limitation issues are fact-specific. Privacy and misuse-of-private-information principles may apply even where copyright does not.

Canada. Copyright law uses fair dealing for listed purposes, including criticism, review, news reporting, education, parody, and satire. Privacy protections vary between federal and provincial laws, especially for private-sector organizations. Defamation law and limitation periods are mainly provincial, with significant differences among provinces and territories.

Australia. Copyright exceptions generally use fair dealing, including purposes such as criticism or review, parody or satire, and reporting news. Privacy protections include federal and state or territory rules, and image or recording laws can restrict certain conduct. Defamation is governed largely by nationally harmonized state and territory legislation, but procedure and application can still differ.

Across all four systems, a licence, consent, public interest, and the difference between an original work and a copied work can materially change the outcome. Rules may also differ within a country, particularly for privacy, publicity, defamation, limitation periods, and recordings.

When people consult a lawyer

A lawyer’s advice is particularly useful when:

• You received a demand, takedown notice, court document, or settlement offer.
• The material is central to a business, advertisement, film, publication, or election campaign.
• The post involves a child, intimate image, health information, or alleged crime.
• Someone threatens litigation, reports you to police, or claims substantial financial or reputational harm.
• You need to identify an anonymous poster or obtain an injunction quickly.
• You are considering a counter-notice or relying on fair use or fair dealing.
• The content crosses countries or involves several people’s rights.