Website Image T-Shirt Prints - Unknown Image Orgins

I have a website that displays random images from a database of several thousand images. The images are funny random images that people have added captions to or edited in photoshop.

I believe these images are public domain and were created for anyone to see and enjoy, but I'm not sure if this applies to the internet.

Anyways, I have seen the images on my site appear on several different websites in the past.

My question is, would it be legal to offer any of these images to be printed on a t-shirt? The sale would not be made through my website, but another service that does t-shirt printing. But they do pull the image off my website to print on the shirt, and I would be receiving about a 40% commission.

These images are widely re-used and distributed over the internet, and there's no clear indication who the original owner or publisher is for any of the images.

This seems like a pretty big grey area to me, so I was just wondering if this is something I can legally do.

The site is hosted and operated out of the U.S. by the way.

I would say that the odds are pretty good the images are not in the public domain and that there is a copyright holder out there somewhere whose permission you would need to obtain prior to using any of the images in a commercial manner. One should always assume that what is found on the internet is rights-protected.

It is even legally risky for you to display these images on your website if you are unsure of their origin and do not know if they are rights-protected, and if you have not obtained prior permission from the copyright holders to display them (if there are copyright holders to obtain permission from).

This need for permission would apply whether the creators of the images reside outside the U.S. or not, or whether you accessed the images from another country's website or one based in the U.S.

While copyright laws often vary in significant ways from country to country, including differences in what a country considers public domain material, copyrights can be enforced regardless of where the copyright holder resides and regardless of where the infringement occurs and the infringer lives.

I suggest you have your website images, and the site or sites from where you have taken these images for use on your own website, personally reviewed by an attorney in your area. This personal review can provide you with a better indication of whether or not the images you wish to use are actually in the public domain and free to use.

You can do a little bit of research on your own by putting "public domain" into your search bar (several informative sites will appear) and also plugging in the words "copyright law [whatever country is involved]."

Good luck.

Edit to add: This is a duplicate thread. It's twin is located in "Online Purchases and Sales" and replies were provided by both FlyingRon and asiny there. To nickyb713: Could you please lock one of your two threads (either this one or the one in Online Purchases) and then use only the one remaining thread for any additional questions you may have? Thank you.