Am I allowed to use this photo?
Most small businesses answer "can we use this photo?" from memory, and memory is where the answer goes to die. The photographer's email was four inboxes ago; the stock licence was bought by someone who has left.
Keep the answer with the photo
Your library gives every photo a record card, and the card travels with it for life: who owns it, whether they must be credited, what the licence allows, and when it expires. Ask your assistant to fill one in — in your own words, as you remember things — and it writes them down.
"I don't know" is a real answer
Photos adopted from your old site start marked rights unknown, and the library shows you how many there are rather than quietly pretending they're fine. That count is the to-do list. Ask your assistant to walk you through them a few at a time; it records what you say as you go, and the number comes down.
Recording a photo's rights doesn't touch the photo or the page it's on — it's a note on the card, not a website change, so there's nothing to approve or preview. If you'd rather understand the bigger picture of what your assistant can and can't do unattended, see Is it safe to let an AI edit my site?.
The prompt
“Go through my photos and tell me which ones we don't have rights information for — then ask me about them a few at a time.”
The [bracketed] parts are yours to fill in. First time? Connect bernard to your AI over MCP — a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI — then paste the prompt above.
Questions people ask
- How do I know if I'm allowed to use a photo on my website?
- Keep the answer with the photo. Your library holds a record card for each one: who owns it, whether a credit line has to be shown, what kind of licence it's under, and when that licence runs out. Ask your assistant and it reads the card back to you. Nothing about the photo itself changes without your approval — recording rights is just writing down what you tell it.
- I've no idea where half my photos came from. Is that a problem?
- It's the normal starting point, and the library says so out loud rather than pretending. Photos brought in from an old site start marked rights unknown. Ask your assistant which ones those are and it'll go through them with you a few at a time, writing down what you tell it — you approve what gets recorded, it doesn't guess.
- What happens when a photo's licence runs out?
- Record the expiry date on the photo's card and it stops being something you have to remember.