hmmmm . . .
Woodpigeon started a thread on ‘another site’ asking about whether using images on blogs found either on Google or elsewhere was an infringement of copyright laws. Which has made me wonder if I’m breaking the law. 😕
As is no doubt very apparent to you all, I like putting a wee image at the top of my posts. Which I find in a variety of places. Unless they are my own photos I don’t link them to the original full image, they are just thumbnails.
I think if I were to try and use these images for some sort of financial gain I would indeed be breaking the law. But just to have a cute thumbnail image at the top of my blog posts doesn’t seem like a serious offense.
What do you think?
casa azahar 
It seems perfectly harmless and not at all dishonest to me. But then again, the “avatar” image I am using is a popular cartoon character over here, so I may be guilty as well. I agree though that just wanting a cute thumbnail image (or avatar image) doesn’t seem like it should be a problem. I would imagine it’s only an “offense” if the copyright owner(s) actually take issue with using their image(s).
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You know we actually saw your avatar image in a shop window here recently. I said to Nog – ‘eep! There’s PC’s monkey!’ We’d never seen it anywhere else before. And we still don’t know what it was an image for.
And some people use very well known cartoon characters as their avatars. Calvin and/or Hobbes seem to be particular favourites. And not to mention that Nog is using a cartoon image of Noggin the Nog as his avatar.
Mine is of our cat Azar sitting in front of Nog’s computer – it’s a great shot of him looking like he’s about to order in 20 kilos of salmon from eBay.
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This is one of those really unhelpful replies.
I am sure I have seen an article on this very subject fairly recently – but can I find it now? :blush:
It would probably have been on either news.bbc.co.uk or theregister.co.uk – if I find it and there’s anything wothwhile therein (I’m getting old and can’t remember the details), I’ll post it.
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Yeah well, thanks for that Johnny… 😉
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The image I used in my avatar is a monkey named Julius, created by Paul Frank. He appears on a lot of clothing and accessories. I have a wallet and a handbag with his face, and scanned the price tag from the handbag to make my avatar.
Your avatar image of Azar using the laptop, is one of my all-time favorite photos, if not the Number One. I think it’s the coolest avatar image I have ever seen.
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Yeah, and I’m very sure that Paul Frank will sue you for using his monkey image for your blog avatar…
Glad you like the Azar pic – it came about one afternoon when Azar was just sitting there and Nog said … Quick! Get the camera! 🙂
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Apparently, we’re both breaking the law. http://www.netatty.com/copyright.html
But the question is, to what degree will the copyright owners wish to enforce this? I may have to change my avatar now, just to be honest about it- since it’s something I am using to “indentify” myself, so to speak.
I would think your thumbnails constitute “fair use”, though.
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The tricky part of getting photos of cats doing cute and unusual things, is getting the camera and getting ready to shoot the photo before the little beasts realize what you’re doing and lick their bottoms or something instead…
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Your little avatar monkey thumbnail thingy should probably be seen as extra free publicity … as I said before, I wouldn’t have recogised the monkey face on a shop window here if I hadn’t seen it here first.
As for getting cats to pose … yeah right. How much time have you got? Every great cat photo I have was just a matter of chance.
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We’re not necessarily breaking the law. Some web content is under Creative Commons licences. This is a whole new approach to copyrighting (they call it ‘copyleft‘) which has been founded specifically for the web and Open Source products.
Lissen, though…as somebody who steals practically all his music, I’m hardly going to worry about a few piccies, am I?
(It was extremely polite of Snailrind to ask before borrowing some of my flower photos recently – but totally unnecessary, since they’re under Creative Commons. Licencing terms can be viewed on my Flickr site. Ooh! Ooh! You should look at my latest one:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/edwardthebonobo/264882260 …and while you’re at it, at http://bonoboworld.blogspot.com .)
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Well, I was once told that one of my photos in the h2g2 friends gallery was used in a Nigerian scam… not sure if this was true, but all those photos are online and that is my choice.
They can be copied at anytime.
Anyhoodle, I just use thumbnails here and don’t link to the actual photo, so it’s really not any different from how it appears on google images or other places.
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Similar to Psychcandy’s link:
http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-ip.php
Not what I originally saw, but seems to say the same thing(s) in essence.
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Psychocandy!!!
Where is that preview button?!?!
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Looks like just using a cute thumbnail image on a blog post is quite okey-dokey.
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Edward! Your flowers are delightful. I particularly like the latest lily and the “burst” is amazing.
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Shucks!
Ta.
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My opinion was that fair use was allowed. with what you posted Az about a thumbnail being “fair use” more likely than a full sized. Alternatively, if you were writing a paper or criticism of an image,text,etc that was copyrighted, than you could quote it extensively of course. In the case of images/art I would think you would *need* the highest resolution possible, in order to have a valid critical approach.
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This has been most enlightening – putting an image on a blog really helps to emphasise what you are trying to say. The emphasis is never to rip off someone else’s work, but I guess it is right to credit the image where possible.
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If you ever have a hankering to use space images, the NASA photos are free to use. The theory is that the taxpayers paid for the space shot that resulted in them, so they’re fair game. I would get them off the NASA.gov sites to make absolutely sure some nutball has a hissy fit if you use their cropped image. They *cannot* copyright any of those images, as they are already in the public domain.
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“They *cannot* copyright any of those images, as they are already in the public domain.”
Well, that’s what I thought. If I can find them on Google Images and they haven’t been ‘protected’ so you can’t download them, then it seems okay to use them, especially just a thumbnail as I do. In fact, a lot of them I come across can only be copied as a thumbnail anyhow – they often aren’t linked to the original picture.
Though if anyone ever did complain to me about borrowing one of their images I would politely remove it, of course.
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Here’s a good site for some free-use graphics.
Free Clip Art
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