Can you put pictures found on the internet in a book if the picture doesn't have a claim on it?

Question

I see pictures on wikipedia and stuff and wondered if you can put those in a book.

Answer 1

You can still use the image, but you need to gain permision, this would mean, finding out, who owns the rights to the image, eg, who made/took the image, and also the website that the image is hosted on.

Once you have writen permision to use the image, you can do what you want with it, as long as the owner is okey with it.

Answer 2

No! You can't. Regardless of whether any ownership is declared or not, you are likely to discover that somebody does have a claim to the copyright of the images. Should you sell a book, containing images from the Internet, you are highly likely to be sued for Royalties at the very least. Somebody took the images and he/she didn't make them available for public viewing for you to profit from. If anybody has the right to any profit, it's the person that took the original image and / or the person that the image was sold to. Before publishing images, you should contact the person or company that either has the site or posted the image and ask for permission to use the image. However, it would be likely that permission will be given but at a price and/or a percentage of profit and/or a certain price for every book sold. Remember regardless of info available, somebody will have a claim to the copyright of any image on the Internet.

Answer 3

No you can't - they're still someone else's property, and are protected. Unless it says 'royalty free' or something similar, then you can't use it.