I want to use Zazzle to sell products that I design, but I do not know how to determine copyrights.?

[Timothy Perseus Wordsworthe]

I want to use quirky or humorous pictures that I find to design unique stamps for a royalty fee on Zazzle.com . However, I fear that pictures that I have found belong to others. I have found many pictures on Facebook of Ninjas, Spartans, outer space and science, memes. Are these legally owned by someone such that I may not use them? I know that my own photos that I took with my camera are mine, but what about everything else?
What about pictures that a special search engine gives you?

Haikudeck is an app that helps people make slide shows and presentations, it helps you find high quality photos of whatever you search for. Screenshots of a slide you make plus words in the slide make memes easy. Does Haikudeck own rights to these pictures? The whole point of the app is that you can use these slides in business to make money.
It is a free app that gives free photos that it collects and takes for the express purpose that you will make slideshows and presentations.

[BestFly]

Copyright is a VERY complex issue and their are lawyers that specifically deal with it. I am not a lawyer, and I must tell you I am not giving you any legal advice.

As for pictures you find on Facebook and other websites... many of them are most likely copyrighted by someone somewhere. But you have to be either very unlucky, or be making money on the image. There is a lot of copyright violations that go on that people ignore for various reasons.

Now, some pictures you see online might have a creative common license (Philosoraptor is an example of this), this means you can use the image as long as you credit the original creator. However, finding what type of license every image has can be difficult if not impossible.

Remember, derivative works are also covered under copyright. So any changes you make have to be enough where there can not be any likelyhood of confusion.

Anyways, to answer the question I think you want to know
Will anyone sue you for using the images: Probably not, unless you're making a lot of money on it.
Will Zazzle let you actually use the images?: Maybe, depends on what they are. They have not always been the most diligent in this area.

I should add.
Copyright is technically happens once a work is made. So as soon as you draw something, or write something it is automatically copyrighted. Now, this does not mean it has protection, for that you would have to register the copyright.

Also, you should know this but you obviously just can't take something you find online and use the image as it is unless it has a creative common license as stated earlier. This is plagiarism AND copyright infingement

I believe Haiku Deck filters to creative common pictures which you can use (as long as you reference the original.)

Another thing is simply referencing the copyright does not make it legal to use. You're essentially just admitting your stealing.

Since Haiku deck is used for presentations it MIGHT be considered to be educational (which falls under free use) but this is a jury question based on in what it is used in. Another tidbit is that things like the internet and electronic copyrights are still heavily debated.

[Sapient]

Only the pictures that you have taken yourself are yours. Any that you find are someone else's. Isn't that easy to understand? If you want to use someone else's property, you have to get permission. And if you want to make money from someone else's property, then they will usually want you to PAY them for that permission.

If you don't get permission, they can sue you for large amounts of damages, and win. In fact, they can sue you for more than you've made from that design.

Even if you don't charge money, if you violate someone's copyright by using their pictures or whatever, you can still have to pay a large amount of money.

[bcnu]

You have absolutely no permission to sell any copyrighted images (by others) unless you get a license from the copyright owners. This applies to anything created in the USA since 1989, anything published prior to that with proper copyright notice, registration and any necessary renewal, and anything created in another country in the past 50 years or more.

If you find photos published prior to 1923, or created by the US government, you can be pretty sure they no longer have any enforceable copyright and you would not need ANY license to use those. Those would be what are called "public domain", meaning they have no copyright. Anything ELSE must be presumed to be copyrighted unless you can prove (in federal court, if necessary) that it is not.