The Ruminato Guide to Using Images On Substack

If you're a writer, sourcing and licensing your images is more important than you might think

We live in an era of mass copyright infringement, from AI to uncredited images on social media memes. But if you’re a writer on Substack, you should be aware that copyright laws still exist regarding the use of images.

In general, images might mean very little to you, so it’s easy to disregard the copyright question. For others, images might play a bigger role.

You probably use them, no matter how important you think they are, if for no other reason than to be sure your Substack post preview looks attractive or has some potential to pull in readers.

Photo by Jake Johnson on Unsplash

A good image can lure readers in, especially if you’re trying to pull them in through a note or a restack.

Here’s an example of how an image in a preview can help a Subsack post attract views:

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That post has been restacked 539 times at the time of this writing. Naturally, I’d like to assume it was the content that motivated people to restack it. But the image probably urges at least a few people to click/tap the post from the restacks.

As a former art director, I have an uncontrollable urge to tell part of my story with images. In this case, the image features a possibly insane Marc Andreessen with a large Substack logo on his shirt chasing writers off the Substack platform. If that’s not your takeaway, that’s okay. Writers don’t need to connect with every reader through images. They can’t even if they try, any more than they can connect with everyone through their writing.

You might also use graphics to illustrate a point.

No matter how you use them, reading this should help clarify copyright and use issues.

Despite the advent of AI, most writers still use traditional methods for including images in stories.

Unfortunately, some don’t use proper attribution, or they do other things that can run afoul of copyright laws.

This post isn’t intended as a legal guide. It reflects my experience using images within the context of public communications for the last thirty-five years or so. This includes the advertising biz and as the art director for the International Association of Business Communicators’ (IABC) monthly magazine, Communication Arts, many, many years ago. The laws haven’t changed substantially since then.

The first thing to know: Source the images you use on Substack

I can’t emphasize this enough. If you do not source your images, you expose yourself to a lawsuit from image creators. If your post has only a few views, it’s not a problem. Nobody’s going to bark. But you never know when something will go viral.

Sourcing an image simply means giving credit to the original creator, whether that’s you or someone else. Another word for this is attribution.

Even if you create your images yourself, you should source them. Why? Two reasons:

One, you should credit yourself for your good work. Two, it aids readers who care about these things to understand that you’re a model citizen in the world of image users.

You can also lose street cred from fellow writers when you use images without attribution. And let’s face it, a lot of Substack readers are also writers.

How To Source an Image on Substack

Let’s consider this simple image:

Image licensed from Adobe Stock. This means I paid for it.

Sourcing that image looks like this:

See Notes for image credits

The text below the image, where the little fella is pointing, lets the reader know where the image is from. In this case, the caption reads, “Image licensed from Adobe Stock.”

You’re not limited here. You can write more than just where you found the image. You can write something like, “Whoopeee, I love this image, don’t you?” And then source it.

In other words, write whatever you want in the caption. Just make sure that you include how the image was sourced if you didn’t create it.

On my stories on the Medium platform, I almost always included a link to all my images in the caption, but I’ve gotten away from that on Substack, mostly because people don’t seem to care. But I always know where the source came from, just in case a nosy legal beagle decides to poke around.

You’ll also see in this article that I simply wrote “See notes for image credits” in one of the captions for this story. I do this sometimes on repetitive sources or on images where I don’t want a long caption.

The key takeaway here is that the author is attributing the image to its creator.

Before we move on to understanding licenses like Creative Commons, I’m going to do some finger-wagging.

How NOT To Source an Image

If you go to a celebrity or news site and copy an image there, then add something like this under your image…

“Photo courtesy of People Magazine”

…that is not sourcing your image. Unless you received specific permission from People Magazine to use the image, it’s copyright infringement.

I’ve seen this done on both Medium and Substack multiple times in just the last month alone. The use of the phrase “courtesy of” is an insult, because People never extended that courtesy, and the original author never asked for it.

Don’t do this.

People Magazine could, if their lawyers are in a foul mood when they see your article, sue you for copyright infringement and easily win.

The same is true with any website where you “borrow” an image.

It’s not like you’ll go to prison or anything if you don’t credit the source, but it could cause a lot of grief. It also makes you look like a rank amateur. Don’t do it if you care what designers, photographers, other writers, and observant people think about your writing.

This happens more than you would expect here on Substack. Sometimes I see this type of attribution on stories with hundreds of likes. Popular or not, if you do this, you expose yourself to the possibility of a lawsuit. In fact, the more popular it is, the more likely you are to gain the attention of someone you’d rather not.

Generally, copyright enforcement is handled not by lawsuit, but by a DMCA Takedown Request, which is a cease and desist order by the work’s creator. Software tools exist to seek out copyright violations¹ and issue such takedown requests.

Here’s a specific example of a copyright violation on Medium (I won’t identify the author or link to the story):

Screenshot from Medium; Fair use claim

The caption merely says, “ ‘The Waltons’ ” publicity photo c.1975." The image link goes to:

https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/the-waltons-a-neighbor-used-to-interrupt-production-at-warner-bros.html/

This, in turn, displays an image that clearly belongs to Getty Images (an expensive stock image house).

You’re violating copyright when you simply “borrow” an image from another site. And you look bad doing it. If you’re new to writing or Substack, it’s understandable why you might think it’s okay not to attribute sources. TwitterX users do it all the time.

However, Substack isn’t TwitterX (where people constantly violate copyright for memes). There are loftier expectations for posters and writers on Substack (and other blogging platforms).

Why should I care? It’s just an image

Let me ask you this. How would you feel if I copy/pasted an article you wrote and posted it as mine?

Photographers and illustrators work hard, just like writers. They deserve to be compensated for their work if they choose. At a bare minimum, they like to have their work credited to them even when they don’t expect payment. You’ll see what I mean in this next section, “Understanding Licensing.”

Understanding Licensing

To properly source an image, you need to understand how licensing works. A license is a description of usage rights. You have, or don’t have, a license to use an image.

There are several types of licenses, but most of them for your purpose will fall under one of four categories, three of which are free:

• Royalty licensing (usually not free)

• Creative Commons licensing (free)

• Public domain licensing (free)

• Fair Use licensing (free)

Before I get into all that, there’s a special type of licensing that Substack writers who are skittish about all this licensing mumbo-jumbo can use: Unsplash.

Unsplash

Unsplash is the default Substack source for images. The credits (source attributions) are automatically inserted into the image caption when you use Unsplash. It’s truly plug-and-play. Use these images without any concern for licensing. You can also use Unsplash directly from their site and view their licensing terms for that here:

Unsplash License | Unsplash Help Center

The Unsplash option is offered to Substack writers in the dropdown that appears when you click to insert an image. The option you want is “Add stock photo.”

Unsplash has about the easiest licensing terms you can find on the internet. The caustic cynic in me says that means that now that a large stock image house has purchased them, their new owners will ruin things for everybody.

But even if that happens, the licensing terms are clear: The Unsplash images you use are yours to do with what you want, no matter what happens in the future. If you’re skittish about licensing, just use Unsplash.

If you’re feeling more adventurous, I’ll show you some additional fun options.

Royalty License

This is the kind of image you pay for (generally speaking).² There are dozens of resources for what is commonly called stock photography. The aforementioned Adobe Stock is an example of images that use royalty licenses.

Getty Images is probably the most popular among the bigger news sites, but it’s also the most expensive. If you want to display a photo of the most recent news events, you’d most likely go to Getty to acquire an image.

Getty stocks up on new images from photojournalists every day. It’s also out of my price range. A new image of an important event will cost at least a couple of hundred dollars, if not more.

There are lots of alternatives to Getty, but they won’t be quite as timely. I used Shutterstock for a while, but at $30/month, it’s pricey because the 10 images per month don’t roll over (or, didn’t when I was using it — if that has changed, please let me know in the comments).

I switched to Adobe Stock because it’s the same monthly price as Shutterstock, but the images roll over. That’s a huge difference. If I don’t use it for a couple of months, I suddenly have a lot of image credits.

Unfortunately, during the last few months, Adobe Stock has become infested with AI images on most search queries, so if you’re against using AI images, you’ll need to hover over a search result you like, look for the “AI” icon, and then pick an image that doesn’t have the icon. Luckily, you can also filter your results to exclude AI images.

Most stock photography sites that charge for their images use a “royalty” license, but there are free services out there, too. There are no kings or queens involved with royalty licensing. A royalty license just means that when you purchase an image from a royalty images site like Getty, Adobe, or Shutterstock, you have the right to use it in any commercial or editorial application, depending on the specifics of the license.

Some stock royalty licenses only allow you to use images for editorial use, but not for advertising. That kind of restriction doesn’t normally impact us here on Substack, since most of us use images for editorial use.

Rarely, some stock images have additional limitations, so keep an eye out for details about the licensing structure. These are usually prominently called out by the stock provider.

If you’re like me and do some kind of promotion at the end of your post, you will need to pay close attention to the license type if you use an image. For example, I occasionally promote one of my novels using an image like this:

Image licensed from Shutterstock; Photosmashup by author; All rights reserved

The license for the original image for this graphic included a full license that includes promotional use, so I’m okay here. The books are simply shots from my smartphone and manipulated in Photoshop, then dropped into the image. Most royalty licenses let you manipulate images all you want, but a few don’t. Read the fine print, if there is any.

Take a look at the caption to see how I work the licensing info and URL of the original image into the caption. Because it’s a royalty image, I include the text “all rights reserved,” which means, sorry, you don’t get to use it. I do this even though I created the final image with my additions.

Luckily, there’s no reason you’d want to use this image because it’s just some goofy wizard tossing my books around.

If I want to allow my readers to reuse my image, I need to use an image with a different kind of license: Either a Creative Commons license or a public domain image.

I rarely include the phrase, “All rights reserved.” I used it in this case because the images involved a book cover created by my publisher via an outstanding book cover designer named Rachel Lopez.

You can, of course, contact an image creator directly to seek permission or to arrange a fee for using their images. This is a great way to support artists and photographers on sites like Deviant Art and Flickr.

The important thing to remember when using someone else’s image is to look for a license associated with the image you want to use that specifically allows you to use it.

If you don’t, you’re making the mistake of non-attribution. I’ve already scolded your future self for that, so let’s look at some free licensing options next.

Creative Commons Licenses

Creative Commons is an international nonprofit that manages a set of licensing standardization protocols. Authors and graphic artists can choose from several types of licenses when they assign licensing rights to their works.

You’ll find a lot of these types of images on Wikimedia Commons, which is a vast library of free images managed by Wikipedia.

Creative Commons images are always free to use. An entire article could be written on the types of Creative Commons licenses available. Most of them ask that you provide attribution. Most of them also allow you to alter the image.

Usually, when altering the image, the creator asks you to include the same kind of licensing. I don’t generally do that. I include the license, and if I alter it I say so. I feel like it’s understood that if I don’t claim any kind of copyright ownership, that it’s understood that the same license holds for my altered work.

For an explanation of each type of Creative Commons license, check out the Creative Commons explainer below:

About CC Licenses - Creative Commons

My caption for a Creative Commons license typically looks like this:

“Image by (name of creator with link to the image) via (type of Creative Commons license and link to the license).”

Here’s an example:

Image credit: screenshot from my Substack post, "The Ultimate Guide to Trader Joe's Dating"

In this case, the caption reads: “Hearts image public domain via Wikimedia Commons. Trader Joe’s image by Harrison Keely, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons; Photosmashup by author.” Links to the image and the Creative Commons license are included in the caption.

Public Domain

You can find a surprising number of public domain images that require no licensing. All you need to do is search the internet for “public domain images imagetopic” to find them.

For example, a search for “Public domain images Chicago” on a typical search engine reveals this very cool resource from Chicago’s Art Institute:

Open Access Images | The Art Institute of Chicago

You can manipulate public domain images and use them however you like. The next time you’re hungry for a unique image, play a little game by filling in the blank in a search engine query:

“public domain images ________________”

It’s a fun game, and you’ll find yourself immersed in libraries full of interesting images and photography.

Fair Use

Fair use is a nebulous concept that falls outside of the licensing methods I’ve described so far.

You can make a Fair Use claim if the source of the image you are using is relevant to your article. So, if you’re criticizing a New York Times headline, most legal beagles will argue that you can screenshot the headline and claim fair use.

You need to be very careful when making fair use claims. It is not fair use to use the CBS publicity image for the Waltons I pointed to earlier in the article.

Generally, the point of fair use is this: Your story includes some commentary about a specific resource, and it is only fair that you show your users an image that is tied directly to your commentary.

The reason the earlier CBS publicity image example doesn’t qualify as fair use is that the writer simply lifted the image from a publication called Showbiz CheatSheet (which correctly sourced its image to Getty).

If the story had been a critique of CheatSheet and how it was using the image, then it would have been fair use. Even in that case, the writer would have, under fair use, probably been required to use a screenshot for context, not the actual image.

One of the best movie publications on Medium, Fanfare, considers the use of movie studio images fair use. I think this is correct, so when I write movie reviews for them, I go ahead and use movie studio images, like in the following story, because Fanfare’s guidelines permit me to do so:

David Fincher’s The Killer Has a Fight Scene That Won’t Go Away

However, because Fair Use is such a cloudy legal concept, I avoid it when I can.

But wait, there’s more!

As you can see, there are many ways to provide attribution to various image sources out there.

But how do you actually find these image sources?

Sorry, that’s another post!

Notes

Standard Disclaimer: This article is not meant as legal advice. If you’re worried about copyright, either simply don’t use the image or consult a copyright attorney.

Don’t let me leave you with the impression that you should go back and check all your posts. I’m sure I’ve occasionally left off attribution by mistake. Even if you consistently get 100,000+ views, the very worst that is likely to happen is a takedown request.

Unsplash was acquired by Getty in 2021.

Image credits for small screenshots showing little fella pointing: Little fella from Adobe Stock; core image of fantasy from Adobe Stock; screenshot from Medium/me; image smashup by author.

The image credits for the Andreessen/Substack story were as follows:

Photo of Marc Andreessen by TechShowNetwork, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0; base image licensed from Adobe Stock; fair use claim on Substack logo; image smashup by author

A great resource for finding Creative Commons images is this image search engine:

https://openverse.org/

My supersmart poet friend

Nancy Santos

uses WikiArt for many of her poetry posts. This is a good way to find unique images because there’s a bunch of royalty-free, usually older, art there.

There are many more art sources than I’ve pointed to in this article. I may (or may not) do a future post about where to find images later on.

Thanks for reading!

This post was not written using AI. Guaranteed.

1. One example of a DMCA Takedown search tool:

https://www.rulta.com/

I have no idea about the efficacy of the tool.

2. Unsplash can probably be considered a royalty stock house, but they’re free. I assume they make some of their money through nice, fat contracts with Medium and Substack.