Please beware of copyrighted pictures ! Input appreciated
We have had a complaint about a copyrighted picture on the Word of the Day. It was the first time but we do not wish to see this happen again.
It was rapidly removed.
Who knows about copyright ? Do you know a place where we can link pictures without infringing this law?
What do we have to look out for?
The web creators are looking into this, but we would really appreciate some input and help. Thanks a lot
I have just found a website that provides lots of copyright free images. You can make an advanced search and lots of images come up.
Welcome to Stock.XCHNG, the leading FREE stock photo site!
If you know any other site, please let us know
11 Answers
This site makes a fairly clear explanation of how copyright rules work regarding precisely this issue: http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/internet/page5970.cfm
Strictly speaking, everyone posting should make sure that the images being used are either in the public domain, royalty-free, are being referenced with the owner's permission, or are their own. In reality this tends not to happen, and it is difficult to enforce.
There are also certain murky terms within the "Fair Use" doctrine that make it nearly impossible to make an absolute decision. For example, according the following paragraph, it could be argued that the images being borrowed are only being used for teaching purposes:
While "fair use" is a somewhat nebulous term — and subject to interpretation — it refers to the things you can do with an image without permission. In general, it may be considered fair use if you are reproducing a work for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.
Note, however, that if you reprint a work and if the copyright is called into question, the burden will fall on you to prove that you "believed and had reasonable grounds for believing that [your] use of the copyrighted work was a fair use," according to the U.S. Copyright Office.
The U.S. Copyright Office notes that the factors that help determine whether use of a work constitutes fair use include:
- The purpose of the work, including whether such use is of a commercial
nature or is for nonprofit
educational purposes.
- The nature of the copyrighted work. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.
- The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the
copyrighted work.
Anyone can threaten to sue. However, if the owner asks that the image be removed, and his request is promptly obeyed, it probably would be more of a hassle and an expense to actually sue, and demonstrate that damage has been caused, than to just be satisfied with the removal. Most folks who are really concerned about their contents not being shown or referenced elsewhere outside the context they provide have at their disposal a number of tools that make image theft difficult. Obviously when you come across an image like that, which won't let itself be copied or referenced easily, you should leave it alone, rather that insist. Trying to find a workaround would definitely show an intention to deliberately steal copyrighted material.
In my non-professional opinion, I don't worry overmuch about it. This site is not in the business of selling or profiting from images or their use thereof, so there are little grounds to raise a great big stink, and there's always someone ready to threaten to sue for some reason or another anyway. If it's not for a borrowed picture, it may be because they feel that they were promised a learning experience which they didn't get, or that they were subject to anguish and humiliation by something that someone said, or that they learned a word here and got beaten up when they tried to use it in a foreign country. Whatever.
As for images that can be downloaded without breaking the law, just do a search for "copyright-free", "open or creative commons license" or "public domain" images.
I wouldn't worry about that. I'm not a lawyer, but on what ground are they going to sue?
- SD didn't download the image, a user did. If I post a copyrighted image on Facebook, will Facebook be sued?? Never.
- The image wasn't sold, redistributed nor used for commercial purposes, this is a learning site and a student used the image for illustration.
- SD is already protected by the second clause of terms of service, please read below.
- Proper Use
You agree that you are responsible for your own use of the Service, for any posts you make, and for any consequences thereof. You agree that you will use the Service in compliance with all applicable local, state, national, and international laws, rules and regulations, including any laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported from your country of residence and all United States export control laws.
At my old job I dealt daily with DMCA issues (copyrights) and people threatening to sue. Many were legitimate take down notices, many were complete non-sense and utterly rediculous. Either way, I personally wouldn't worry about it. As long as you take down the infringing content within a reasonable amount of time after being notified of a DMCA request you are fine.
Long winded DMCA explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmca
Of course as others have noted, this isn't legal advice. But in my experience as long as you act responsibly and take down infringing content when requested, everything's fine. People will be mad and bark and blow smoke, but that's really about it as long as the content is taken down.
I am not attorney, so the following is not legal advice. It really depends on where the site is hosted and where the linked images reside. US courts have generally ruled that linking does not constitute infringement if it is not an attempt to circumvent protections of financial gain, eg. sites that share copyrighted music. Wikipedia and other sites reference court rulings with quotes from the decisions.
Would Marianne know about this or have some contacts with other lawyers who know? There is also a lady who is Hispanic who sometimes posts here and she is a lawyer trained in criminal law but I have forgotten her name. I think she may be Mexican. She mentions that she is a lawyer on her profile..
I hope that helps Heidi 
Well we're not downloading them. We're linking to them on their site. Very many sites allow for this kind of activity, and it seems to me that that majority of sites don't object. (Or else how is it that is happens all the time?)
Also- most sites that do object take it upon themselves to block the ability to link. If they don't want us linking to their pics, why don't they block that? it's in their power.
I suspect that there is a way for us to block pics being posted from certain sites. Chris can probably figure that out.
I know it's okay to use flickr and photoshop pictures, because the users themselves would have said if they didn't want the pictures used that way, and if they wanted credit they could have added watermarks.
Most webcomics allow it now because they know that advertising is how they sell t-shirts. That's how the most successful ones got so big, because they allowed hyperlinking from the start where others didn't.
If you use stock photos with a watermark your advertising their stock site, so I doubt they mind? It's very easy for websites to prevent hyperlinking.
I guess if I had a site I wouldn't want people doing it because they'd be taking my bandwidth, and that's expensive!
Oh hey on some forums when you post a picture clicking on that picture automatically takes you back to the parent website, which I'm sure anyone would love because it's free advertising for them.
I know about copyrighted photos or pictures , but I have found that when I
am told that " this or that photo is under copyright " that one cannot download
it anyway , it just will not work , or do some of them slip through the net , in which
case isn't this a case of "oops sorry? 
I should point out that some sites discourage hot linking images by changing them to pornographic ones. . .the original poster continues to see the image they posted, but those who hadn't seen it before the switch only see the new one.
I wonder how much "the owner" wants.
Some adjectives come to mind but I can't be bothered.
Is there a way to know when we are allowed to use a picture? I suspect that all pictures are copyrighted but we can use them as long as we mention the source.
