There have been a couple of recent cases in the Diocese of York of local churches being chased by copyright owners for use of pictures on parish websites or social media.
It happens easily - we search for a picture of a person or place we want to mention in a story or a notice, we copy or save it, and include it on our own website. The problem is that pictures we find online are just as likely to be copyright as those we see in print, in a newspaper or magazine.
Sometimes you'll hear someone suggest that 'Google images are free to use' - this is untrue, and actually based on a wrong idea. When you use an internet search engine like Google, Bing or others to search for images, it simply provides you with a visual link to the website or page on which that image appears. There is actually no such thing as a 'Google Image' even if you found it on a search page headed 'Google Images'!
If you use a copyright image on your website without permission, you may get a letter, an invoice or - at worst - even a summons from the copyright owner or their agent. The higher the profile of the subject, the more careful you need to be - there is potential commercial value in a professional photo of (say) an Archbishop or another high-profile public figure, or newsworthy event.