Originally Posted by
Raffles
Because there is a huge market these days in lawyers going for people who use copyrighted images. Even if you take an image off an airline or hotel website, if its a generic shot it could be one they only licence, not own, and so you are on the hook for a trip to court or a large fine if you use it. Obviously you can licence stuff off Shutterstock etc and I seem to remember being told BA paid for a licence which all bloggers could use?
The biggest risk is stuff you use when getting started, when you are writing for no-one and just using whatever images you find. Unless you actively delete those images as you grow and gain a profile, they can come back to bite you as I have found.
Have you received threats from COPYTRACK? That's mostly a scam, it seems.