Posting photos on social media..what about copyrights?

[Jzero]

Hello. I like to find images from image searches (like google images) and post them on my social accounts to share them with my friends and others. But what's going on with the copyrights? Is this considered illegal? I'm not claiming that the photos is mine though
Perki88
Yeah but how can i find the owner to get that permission.. i mean sometimes i can find hundreds of copies of a specific image around the web

[Perki88]

It is only legal with the permission of the owner of the copyright. Otherwise you open yourself to a law suit.

[Eric Lefebvre]

If you can't find the owner then you can't use the image.

[PhantomWarrior411]

It is a technical violation of the copyright. However, everybody is doing it an you're not going to get caught for post it like everyone else. You're not going to get sued either because it's not cost effective to go after clueless posters. There's just too many people. If the image is something with market value and someone claims a copyright infringement because you posted it, you will get a notice to take it down - if you do, that's the end of that issue.

Images that you find on google is not "free to use" just because you can't find the owner to ask for permission. Almost everything is copyrighted, it's just the degree of how much effort someone will put into coming after you for it.

[andy w]

It is a copyright infringement to "publicly display" images which you are not the copyright owner or which you do not have the copyright owners specific permission.

If you can't find who owns them to get permission then DON'T post them.

[bcnu]

Copyright enforcement is somewhat like walking through the woods without knowing whose property it is: some property owners won't care, as long as you're not doing any damage, others will come after you and order you not to do it again, but they won't sue you unless you've done damage.

Unfortunately, you could violate a "registered copyright" in the USA and be at risk of being sued for up to $150,000 for each image you upload illegally (which is an unauthorized reproduction, public display, public performance, and/or distribution, all of which violate copyright).

Like Andy says, you only have permission to view things on the web, not to upload them anywhere else, although there are minor exceptions for things like use in a non-profit school classroom.