Looking around this site you seem to do this regularly, but I figured this was as good a place to mention this as any.
I don't know how familiar you are with copyright law, but it basically boils down to this:
1) Any image or written work created in the USA or another country with similar laws (which is most of them) is automatically copyrighted to the owner. 2) It is illegal to reproduce copyrighted content without the permission of the creator.
A whole lot of new websites are starting up that don't understand how to properly cite their sources, so I'm not accusing you of doing anything malicious, just making you aware. Most people now have Google alerts set up to tell them whenever their picture/blog post/whatever turns up elsewhere, so if you keep on the way you are you're going to get a cease and desist notice sooner rather than later.
From a legal point of view giving a link to the original source of the image underneath it isn't actually much better since it's still reproducing it without permission, but it IS generally enough to satisfy most people and it's really easy to do. If it's something that's been passed around the internet so often you can't find out where it came from just make a note at the top of the article saying you tried and if the person who made it contacts you you'll be happy to link to their site.
tl;dr version: lawsuits aren't fun for anyone. Take a couple of seconds to paste in a link and you'll save yourself a lot of hassle.
Looking around this site you seem to do this regularly, but I figured this was as good a place to mention this as any.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how familiar you are with copyright law, but it basically boils down to this:
1) Any image or written work created in the USA or another country with similar laws (which is most of them) is automatically copyrighted to the owner.
2) It is illegal to reproduce copyrighted content without the permission of the creator.
A whole lot of new websites are starting up that don't understand how to properly cite their sources, so I'm not accusing you of doing anything malicious, just making you aware. Most people now have Google alerts set up to tell them whenever their picture/blog post/whatever turns up elsewhere, so if you keep on the way you are you're going to get a cease and desist notice sooner rather than later.
From a legal point of view giving a link to the original source of the image underneath it isn't actually much better since it's still reproducing it without permission, but it IS generally enough to satisfy most people and it's really easy to do. If it's something that's been passed around the internet so often you can't find out where it came from just make a note at the top of the article saying you tried and if the person who made it contacts you you'll be happy to link to their site.
tl;dr version: lawsuits aren't fun for anyone. Take a couple of seconds to paste in a link and you'll save yourself a lot of hassle.