My Squirrelly View of Education

• Michael Wacker – Google+ – Best Practice Tips: Google Docs Large Number of Folks…

  http://t.co/5bbYF7BY Best Practice Tips: Google Docs Large Number of Folks Sharing/Co Creating Whenever using a docume… Best Practice …

• Bloggers Beware: You CAN Get Sued For Using Pics on Your Blog – My Story – Blog – Roni Loren, Romance Author

  Good discussion of copyright and image use online.

  tags: creative commons copyright creativecommons bloggers creative_commons photos blog blogging

  • Wow… thanks for sharing it. I took few pics from search engine and put them on some of my blog posts. Now, I probably should take them down before something like this happens. – post by Slamet Wiyono
  • Bloggers Beware: You CAN Get Sued For Using Pics on Your Blog – My Story

  • Here’s what I learned about Fair Use:

     

    It DOESN’T MATTER…

     

    • if you link back to the source and list the photographer’s name
    • if the picture is not full-sized (only thumbnail size is okay)
    • if you did it innocently
    • if your site is non-commercial and you made no money from the use of the photo
    • if you didn’t claim the photo was yours
    • if you’ve added commentary in addition to having the pic in the post
    • if the picture is embedded and not saved on your server
    • if you have a disclaimer on your site.
    • if you immediately take down a pic if someone sends you a DMCA notice (you do have to take it down, but it doesn’t absolve you.)
• NONE OF THAT releases you from liability. You are violating copyright if you have not gotten express PERMISSION from the copyright holder OR are using pics that are public domain, creative commons, etc. (more on that below.)

• So what can you do?

   

  1. If you’ve been using images without approval from the internet on your blogs, know that you are probably violating copyright and could be sued for it.

   

  Is the chance high? Probably not. Is it possible? I’m proof that it is. So you may want to consider going through your posts and delete pics that aren’t yours.

   

  2. Search for photos that are approved for use.

   

  • Creative Commons licensed pics — You can search for photos that are free to use (with some restrictions) through Creative Commons. Usually this means you have to attribute the photo to the owner and link back to their site. (All of my posts now have pics that are under Creative Commons license. And there are actually really great photos available.) Meghan Ward did a fantastic post on the breakdown of creative commons licenses plus listed some other photo sources.)
  • Wikimedia Commons offers free media files anyone can use.
  • Buy a subscription to a stock photo site — This can be pricey up front but then you have access all year. There are also sites that you can pay per pic. (Here is one example of a subscription service. Thanks to Janice Hardy for that suggestion.)
  • Use photos that are in the public domain.

   

  3. Take your own photos and share the love.

   

  Almost all of us have camera phones these days. Instead of just taking photos of our family, think of images you could use on posts. See a stop sign. Snap a picture and save it. Whatever. And if you want to give back and not just take–open up a Flickr account (here’s mine) and list your own images as creative commons so that you can share the love. (You can set it up to where whatever pic you load from you camera is under that license.)

• Very important comment about Creative Commons

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.