copyright criminal-law
Is it legal to use pictures I take of places on a website without the property owner&#39;s permission?
<p>First off, this question could probably be worded better. Here's my situation: </p>

<p>I'm a web developer and am creating a template to sell on a popular online marketplace called <a href="http://themeforest.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">themeforest.net</a>. The demo of this template is going to mimick a golf course website and is mainly geared toward golf course owners looking to create a website for their course.</p>

<p>Here's an example of a <a href="http://themeforest.net/item/brentwood-golf-course-theme/full_screen_preview/13653957" rel="nofollow noreferrer">similar template</a>.</p>

<p>I have a ton of high res pictures over the years of golf courses and instead of buying some to use I figured I could just use the ones I've taken myself.</p>

<p>My question is that I'm not sure if I can use these pictures without the individual golf courses permission.</p>

<p>I found a similar question here although that particular one was more for taking pictures of <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/7708/is-asking-someone-to-take-photos-of-houses-illegal-without-permission">people's homes</a>. </p>

<p>The pictures would be included to use for free in the templates I sell.</p>

<p>Since you don't specify a jurisdiction, I assume you're interested in the United States.  In general, anything visible from public property is fair game for a photograph.  There are exceptions (eg. you can't use a telephoto lens and a polarizer to take pictures through someone's bathroom window, and a photograph of a copyrighted work of art is still a copyright violation even if you're on a city street), but I'm not aware of any that would apply to a golf course.</p>
