Free Stock Photo Resource

Although I have long advocated fee-based stock photo websites such as iStockPhoto.com and Fotolia.com, I just head about Stock.XCHNG (their web address is actually www.sxc.hu), which purports to be the “leading free stock photo site.”

This company has been around since 2001 but was recently purchased by Getty Images. (Actually, Getty purchased JupiterImages, which was the parent company of Stock.XHNG and had been Getty’s biggest competitor.)

This makes me a little nervous, because in the past few years, Getty Images has been sending out thousands of letters to unsuspecting website owners who knowingly and/or unwittingly used images licensed by Getty without authorization. In many cases, website owners and designers probably did a search on the internet for images, found appropriate ones, downloaded them, and added them to their site without knowing they were licensed photos.

Not only did Getty claim that the business owners in violation needed to pay the licensing fees, but they also claimed damages for copyright infringement which included fees that were hundreds and even thousands of dollars.

And did I mention that Getty now also owns iStockPhoto.com?

Still, I checked out Stock.XCHNG and found that, although they don’t seem to have the depth of other stock photo sites, there is a lot to choose from. Some of these images can make great additions to your blog posts or backgrounds. Check them out at: http://www.sxc.hu/

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