A suitable image is found quickly: a right-click in the search engine, save, upload - done. This seemingly harmless step is one of the most common and most expensive traps when building a website. Almost every photo, graphic and illustration online belongs to someone, and anyone who uses other people's images without the necessary rights risks a warning letter with a cease-and-desist declaration and damages. In court, a dispute value of 3,000 to 6,000 euros (Kanzlei Plutte) is regularly set for a single unlawfully used professional photo. It does not have to be this way. Whoever knows from the start where an image comes from, which licence applies and what it requires builds a website that stands on solid legal ground - and one that loads faster along the way. This guide shows how to clarify image rights correctly, which sources are suitable, and how to use images so they cause neither warnings nor loading-time problems.
Key takeaways
- Photos and graphics are protected by copyright from the moment they are created, with no notice or registration. Using someone else's image without permission brings legal fees of roughly 500 to 600 euros (IT-Recht Kanzlei) plus damages by licence analogy.
- Workable sources are your own shots, purchased stock licences, Creative Commons images, AI images, commissioned photography and cleared partner material. Search-engine results are not a source: freely findable does not mean freely usable.
- Holding a licence is not enough. Check commercial use, attribution under TASL (title, author, source, licence link) and any ban on editing or redistribution. Licence version 4.0 cures a breach within 30 days (iRights.info).
- Purely AI-generated images usually enjoy no copyright protection of their own in Germany (Federal Ministry of Justice). They remain usable only within the provider's terms, without recognisable real people and with labelling under the AI Regulation.
- As soon as people are recognisable, a second check applies: section 22 of the Art Copyright Act and the GDPR require the depicted person's consent. Obtain it in writing and archive it together with the licence record.
- Images also drive speed: 73 percent (HTTP Archive) of mobile LCP elements are images. Scaling to display size, compression, a modern format and lazy loading keep the page fast; camera files of several megabytes do not belong online.
Why other people's images can get expensive
German copyright law protects photos and graphics automatically, without any notice or registration being needed. The moment a photo is created, the author has the sole right to decide over it. Anyone who puts such an image on their website without permission infringes this right - regardless of whether it happened on purpose or out of ignorance. The most important claims of the rights holder are set out in sections 97 and 101 of the Copyright Act: injunction, information and damages. They are usually enforced through a warning letter.
The costs consist of several items. The pure legal fees of an image warning often amount to around 500 to 600 euros (IT-Recht Kanzlei), and considerably more in more complex cases. On top comes the damages, calculated by the so-called licence analogy: you pay as much as a licence for the image would have cost - and where attribution is missing, this amount can increase. A survey in online retail found average values of around 1,400 to 1,500 euros (IT-Recht Kanzlei) per warning across all causes. For a small business, a club or a freelancer, that is a painful sum for an image that supposedly cost nothing - a single warning can quickly exceed the price of a whole website. How such costs can be planned for from the outset is shown in our article on website costs in a fixed-price comparison.
Particularly tricky: many rights holders have the web searched automatically for their images. An unlawfully used photo is therefore often only discovered months later - when the website has long been running and the image is taken for granted. The best safeguard is therefore not hoping to stay unnoticed but clarifying the rights cleanly before publication. For us, exactly this diligence is part of a professionally built website.
The most common misconception
The Safe Image Sources at a Glance
It becomes legally safe as soon as the origin of an image is clear and you can prove the rights to it. There are several proven routes for this. Which one is right depends on the image, the budget and the intended use. What matters is that you consciously choose a source rather than simply using the first search result.
Own photographs
Self-taken images are the safest source. You hold the rights yourself and do not need to ask anyone for permission - as long as no third-party people or protected works appear in them.
Licence platforms
On stock image portals you buy or licence images under clear terms. Read carefully whether the licence covers commercial and online use, and keep the proof of purchase.
Creative Commons
Freely licensed images are allowed but tied to conditions - usually correct attribution. Anyone who ignores the requirements risks a warning despite the free licence.
AI-generated images
Images created with AI can often be used freely, but the terms of use of the respective service decide. Some providers reserve rights or tie use to a subscription.
Commissioned photography
A commissioned photographer delivers tailored images. Clarify the usage rights in writing: where and for how long may the images be used, and is online use included?
Material from partners
Manufacturers or associations often provide product photos and logos. Here too: only use with explicit clearance and within the permitted scope, do not simply copy from their website.
For most small websites, a mix makes sense: your own photos of the business, the premises or the products, supplemented by licensed stock images for topics that are hard to capture yourself. Whoever works with an orderly selection from the start saves later reworking. How this fits into a coherent overall concept is shown in our article on which five pages every website needs.
Reading Licences Correctly: What Matters
A licence is nothing more than the permission to use an image under certain conditions. The most common mistake is to hold a licence but not comply with its conditions. This is exactly what leads to warnings, even though the image was actually obtained legally. Three questions help to classify every licence correctly before an image goes online.
- Does the licence cover commercial use? A website for a business or a freelancer is usually considered commercial - purely private licences are then not enough.
- Is attribution required? With Creative Commons images carrying the abbreviation BY, naming the author is mandatory, otherwise the permission lapses retroactively.
- Are there restrictions on editing or sharing? Some licences forbid changes or require derivative works to be under the same licence.
For Creative Commons images, the so-called TASL rule serves as a rule of thumb: title, author, source, licence - that is, the title of the work, the name of the author, the source and the licence type with a link. Anyone who leaves out one of these points does not fully meet the licence. In practice, warnings happen for exactly this reason, because the attribution is missing or incomplete (iRights.info). Licence version 4.0 at least provides a cure period: if a breach is remedied within 30 days of becoming aware of it, the licence is reinstated (iRights.info). You should not rely on this, though.
Keep proof of your licences
AI Images and Stock Photos: The New Questions
Images created with AI raise their own questions. Under current law in Germany, purely AI-generated images usually enjoy no copyright protection of their own, since the law only protects personal intellectual creations (Federal Ministry of Justice). That sounds practical at first, because the images are then not protected for others. What is decisive, however, are the terms of use of the respective AI service: some providers reserve rights to the results or only allow commercial use within a paid plan (eRecht24). Before use, it is therefore worth a look at the tool's terms.
Two further points apply to AI images. First, entering a protected work into a prompt can itself constitute a copyright infringement, and the result can become too similar to an existing work. Second, AI-generated faces must not recognisably reproduce real people, because that can violate personality rights (eRecht24). On top comes an increasing transparency obligation: certain AI-generated content has had to be labelled since August 2025 under the European AI Regulation (Mittelstand-Digital Zentrum Berlin). For an ordinary mood image on a tradesperson's website this is mostly uncritical, but for informative or deceptively realistic depictions it can become relevant.
For classic stock photos, the most important rule remains: the licence must fit the purpose. An image bought with a standard licence for editorial purposes may not simply be used in advertising. And even a purchased stock photo can require attribution. Whoever works cleanly here avoids the most common stumbling blocks - whether the image comes from an AI, a portal or one's own camera. Whether a custom site or a builder is the right framework for this is examined in our comparison website or website builder.
| Image source | What to watch for | Risk if you get it wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Own photos | No third-party people or brands in the image | Low, as long as third-party rights are respected |
| Licence platform | Commercial licence, keep the proof | Medium with the wrong licence type |
| Creative Commons | Correct attribution (TASL) | High if attribution is missing |
| AI-generated | Terms of use, personality rights | Medium, depending on tool and motif |
| Search engine image | Do not use without a cleared licence | Very high, most common warning cause |
People in Images: The Right to One's Own Image
Even if the image rights are clarified, there is a second level as soon as people are recognisable: the right to one's own image. Under section 22 of the German Art Copyright Act, depictions of a person may in principle only be distributed or shown publicly with that person's consent (Kanzlei Plutte). This applies to the team photo on the about page just as much as to the guest appearing by chance in the background of a restaurant photo. Consent can be given expressly, but is also deemed granted, for example, if someone was paid for the image or visibly agreed.
On top comes the General Data Protection Regulation. Photos in which people are recognisable count as personal data, so a legal basis is needed for their publication - in most cases this is the consent of the depicted person (Kanzlei Plutte). For a small website this practically means: obtain consent before publishing employee, customer or event photos, ideally in writing, and document it. This way you avoid not only copyright but also data protection problems.
Two rights, one check
Legally Safe and Fast: Optimising Images Correctly
Legal safety is one side, performance the other - and both belong together when handling images. Images are not only a legal topic but also the biggest factor for a website's loading time. According to analyses by the HTTP Archive, around 73 percent (HTTP Archive) of the most important visible elements on mobile devices - the so-called Largest Contentful Paint - are images. A single oversized photo can noticeably slow down the page build, and slow pages cost visitors and visibility.
The order of magnitude is shown by another figure: the typical median for the largest image element was around 80 kilobytes, but in the upper range over 500 kilobytes (HTTP Archive). Anyone who uploads a photo straight from the camera with several megabytes therefore wastes an enormous amount of loading time. At the same time, according to the HTTP Archive analysis, 62 percent (HTTP Archive Web Almanac) of mobile pages now achieve a good LCP value under 2.5 seconds - a level that is easy to maintain with optimised images.
Compress correctly
Photos are scaled to the size actually needed and compressed. An image displayed at 600 pixels wide does not need to be uploaded at 4000 pixels.
Modern format
Current image formats deliver noticeably smaller files at the same quality than older formats. That saves data without visitors seeing a difference.
Load lazily
Images that only become visible on scrolling can be loaded later. This way the page starts quickly and the data volume is spread across actual need.
This optimisation is not an end in itself. A fast website is found better, keeps visitors longer and appears more professional. Whoever obtains images legally and optimises them cleanly at the same time hits two birds with one stone: the presence is safeguarded and fast. With a website built by us, this image optimisation is part of the implementation - you do not have to deal with file sizes and formats yourself. Which ongoing support makes sense afterwards is something we clarify under website care.