Policy on image use?
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I imagine everyone on wordpress has this problem: The use of images (like snapshots of politicians) taken from other sites or from google images on which there is no identifiable copyright or attribution notice. I note that wordpress is very strict about blitzing blogs which are in breach of content copyright, but where is the line drawn concerning a thumbnail image of uncertain ownership to brighten up a blog.
I’ve read the terms and conditions and there was no mention of images, only “content”. Advice gratefully received. Thanks.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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I note that wordpress is very strict about blitzing blogs which are in breach of content copyright, but where is the line drawn concerning a thumbnail image of uncertain ownership to brighten up a blog.
WordPress.com is no more or less strict about complying with notices of copyright violations than any other reputable blog host. It’s the law.
You are responsible to ensure you have appropriate permission before publishing anything on your blog that you didn’t create yourself.
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Hi Tellyworth, yes but that is my point: Looking at all sorts of example blogs, some of which are run by regular posters here, including advice givers, seem to be full of images which don’t have appear to have an attribution tag or copyright acknowledgement. The vast majority of wordpress blogs I see have multiple images which are clearly taken from somewhere else, probably other sites which themselves have no certain image ownership details.
That’s why I ask. I accept everyone is responsible for their own blogs but this is clearly a grey area in practice. I just don’t want to get into trouble within a week of publishing! It is not quite the black and white issue you suggest, otherwise thousands of images would be either removed or blogs banned. Is there room for more discussion on this please?
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Further to the last post: Here’s an example of “grey area”. It seems thumbnail or reduced size images, or images taken out of original context, can be considered “fair use”.
Here is a two year old US Court of Appeal ruling on google’s use of thumbnails in its image search engine:
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For obvious reasons staff can’t comment on common practices which are against the law. I can tell you they take complaints very seriously; I nearly lost my blog over the Mentos and Diet Coke video!
The common practice which I have noted in my experience (which gives of course no legal protection for anyone), and which the photosites Getty, Wenn, Splash, and so on have confirmed to me is that as long as you are not using the images for commercial gain AND you credit the original source with a direct link, you’re good. But many photographers and painters and graphic designers don’t feel that way. It’s always best to ask. And never EVER use an image without a link.
If you use something from a photosite like Flickr, etc, it has copyright information right in the sidebar. Obey it.
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Hi Raincoaster: Maybe I missed something but your own blog has tons of pictures on it and I can’t find many with a link. There’s a thumbnail for example of Marilyn Monroe. Let me emphasise I am not challenging you on this, but maybe I do not know the procedures and since you run bloggers courses (or link to one) can you please guide me on exactly what you mean by “linking”? Do you mean simply putting a tag below the image linking it to the source or do you mean something else.
Sorry to be so picky but I thank you for your patience. I want to get this right.
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Is this just friendly discussion or are you looking to use such images on your WordPress.com blog?
Have you checked out picapp?http://en.support.wordpress.com/images/picapp/
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Look at my blog: virtually all of the images there are either original or if you click on them you are taken to the source page. As you can see from the comments in these posts, I worked this out with the photographers themselves:
http://raincoaster.com/2007/04/12/got-coffee/
http://raincoaster.com/2006/09/20/arar-report-is-in/The Marilyn Monroe image is part of the Quiz result, which is supplied by Blogthings. Just as with YouTube, the person who created the object, in this case the quiz, is responsible for obtaining the rights to the image.
You will also note that Blogthings is being clever by keeping those images very small.
When I started http://Lolebrity.net I personally emailed all of the large celebrity photo agencies and they told me that as long as I was not making ANY money from the images, they wanted a link and that’s all. They may tell you something different. As Jennifer said, the solution is Picapp. I use them every day on my celebrity blogs, and they’re terrific. They have already obtained the rights to redistribute those images.
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Images are content and all content is automatically copyright to it’s creator. That being said there are 70 sources of images (free sources) listed on my Resources page on my blog http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com and the copyright information is found on each site’s Terms of Use.
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You’re welcome. I don’t use picapp myself. I find that it simply doesn’t contain images that go with my posts as the Categories are limited to: Sports, Celebrities, News, Fashion, Travel and none of those topics are topics I blog about.
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