Is downloading free available pictures from a website then sharing them illegal?

Yedp

I am not sure if I am posting in the right category so I am sorry in advance if this is not the case!

A question I always asked myself actually is: is it illegal to download an entire website's picture database then share it (with proper credits) to have offline versions!?

Before anyone attach me to a poll and set me on fire, please hear me out

Because we are artists who get inspired by various sketches, pictures, photos, references, etc. and we all build our own library from popular websites such as creativeuncut or characterdesigns.com for exemple. We all know it is really time consuming to save hundred of pictures all day long without end  (I'm sure everyone has done that at least once or twice).

The goal of this topic is to know if this is something that could be shared to the community or would it actually hurt the owners of such websites.

Jonas Ronnegard

I`m sure there are legal routes for them to take to stop that, but one thing that many seem to misunderstand with free stuff, just because it`s free does not mean they are not expecting to make money on it, free stuff is usually there to attract people to the website, get them to sign up for newsletters etc, make money on ads, I have had many people share or add my free brushes etc to their downloadable libraries, but it hurts me just as much as if it was my paid ones, especially without proper credits.

Yedp

Jonas Ronnegard, that does make sense indeed, I guess it's still better to just link to the resources directly instead of sharing your own library like that, thanks!

carvuliero

If you try to sell them might be it depend on what original created stated when place free on top of his product , can be free for everything can be free for educational purposes or free but to not be modified without permission or what ever

My understanding is a bit different then Jones , if its free and its in public domain you don't have any control over your product anymore[its a public properties like all the digitized library of old books] no matter what your original intentions ware,make money of free stuff , free publicity or what ever

If its free and there are not strings attached to word free then its free to do whatever you want with it other wise will be specifically stated

Jonas Ronnegard

legally, what matters is what their license says which I haven't checked, but it sounded more like a moral question so that's what my answer reflected, the site might have a totally different approach though so you will need to look at those sites individually and check if they have any sort of license, creative commons etc.

carvuliero

Ive seen lot of free products with only condition that creator is given credit then their product is used .Jones do you have similar condition in your free stuff also if you don't want to leave things  to chance or ppl good will you could have a clever naming convention that wont leave any doubts who make the product [brush1_Jonas Ronnegard]

Jonas Ronnegard

carvuliero said:

Ive seen lot of free products with only condition that creator is given credit then their product is used .Jones do you have similar condition in your free stuff also if you don't want to leave things  to chance or ppl good will you could have a clever naming convention that wont leave any doubts who make the product [brush1_Jonas Ronnegard]

Lots of Jones here today hehe.

Yeah if that's what their license says then that's totally fine, seemed like he was talking about bigger sites and not smaller websites run by individuals which makes those kind of conditions more rare, but yeah just check their rules/licencing terms and follow that.

As for my free products it says in the license agreement that they can't be uploaded or repackaged, if you want to share them you will need to link it. As for file names I put JRO in all my file names, you don't want to make file names too long.