Using pics from my site

[lynx42]

Keith, I agree that you should be asked before photos from your site are used on another without any credit, But I am glad I followed up the link and discovered the great research and facts on the Australian Centurian Tanks that Col has put together.

All 143 Cents. are now accounted for, I believe, and that would have been a mamouth task.

RegardsRick.

[Keith Webb]

Originally Posted by lynx42

Keith, I agree that you should be asked before photos from your site are used on another without any credit, But I am glad I followed up the link and discovered the great research and facts on the Australian Centurian Tanks that Col has put together.

All 143 Cents. are now accounted for, I believe, and that would have been a mamouth task.

RegardsRick.

Yes he's done a great job there and he contacted me to explain the photos had been forwarded to him by someone else who didn't say where they had come from.
He has also republished them with a credit on a newer site as he can't access the old one.

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Keith

Yes it is a little strange when you are looking around the web to suddenly find your own pictures on somebody else web site, some times with attribution often without.

Must admit that until recently that I started being more meticulous about documenting where I found photos. Only time I used to be very careful to label the source of photos was when somebody sent photos and asked that I not copy or distribute them. Those I keep in a separate file in the computer with each marked as read only no copy. But more recently I started making better notes on photos I find on the web and save. My reason was more selfish than wanting to give proper attribution. It started to drive me crazy when I have a picture in my files and I can't remember or find the source.

The statistics and tracking software that tracks my web site provides some interesting things beside how many people viewed what. One of the features I find interesting is Links from an external page (other web sites except search engines) it tells me how many, today it is 433 links but I can also look at the full list of sites and just click on the site and it will connect me.


There are some strange web sites that have linked to my site, but one of the strangest was Disney World was linked to my site for years because I had used the phrase Beauty and the Beast.

Cheers Phil

[Lang]

Keith,

I have been down this road with my web site and really there is nothing you can do. I have a friend who has got himself into the commercial law niche specialisng in IT matters and his thoughts are:

Once you put something on the World Wide Web you are quite clearly offering the material to everyone in the world and anyone can use that material provided you can not claim and PROVE a physical or financial loss. How you are going to sue anyone in one of the 194 countries outside Australia has me tossed.

Having stuff on the web with copyright all over it does not prevent private use because you have sent it to 6 billion people. Private use can include a non-commercial second web site because they are only giving your material to the same 6 billion people you have already given it to.

Recourse can only happen if someone makes money from your written or graphic material (and much of your stuff is not original but arranged and edited material from third party sources) or you lose money, reputation, business opportunities etc from their republishing.

Of course the whole thing would turn into a shambles if everything published by everyone was pirated willy nilly so we rely on good manners to keep the thing on an even keel. The cost of legal action and the insurmountable problem of proving then quantifying losses and damage prevent almost anyone (including multi-national companies) proceeding against "borrowers". The worst you will get is a letter threatening all sorts of legal action if you don't remove their copyrighted or trademark material.

The best you can hope for is acknowledgement of the source, which in itself is a huge barrier to any action by the owner. You can even use Coke in your commercial website if it is in context ie "Our soft drink contains 30% less sugar than Coke(R)" and you can even put a picture of a Coke bottle beside yours in the ad if you acknowledge their trademark. People don't often do this by convention as apart from being bad business running down your competitors it gives them free exposure.

Keith, don't get too upset by seeing your stuff elsewhere and give up - your site is too good to lose. Just suck it up and ask people, whom you can contact, to please acknowledge you as the source. For anyone else I would also ask that you show a bit of respect for the efforts of any web site owner to find, produce and arrange material by acknowledging the source of anything you use. There are several quite long articles in Wikipedia written by me but stolen from various magazines and web sites by others who have submitted them under their own name - such is life.

Lang

[Keith Webb]

Thanks Lang

I didn't want to sound too precious about it - but of course it did look rather blatant.

A lot of photographers, particularly in the aviation world watermark their images.

The discussion it has provoked I think has been worthwhile.

[Mike Cecil]

And it doesn't end with images.

I have seen slabs of my research and writing taken and reproduced without credit. They have been sourced from books, newsletters, magazines and in some cases, even private letters, including individual Centurion histories, that were then provided by the vehicle owner to the website operator and reproduced, often with the name/signature block deleted.

Lang's right: there is not much that can be done about it, but now when I write an article for a website, I make sure it's prefaced with 'may not be reproduced without permission'. It has some limited effect.

I suppose what bugs me just a little is that the website operators who vacuum up all this 'free' stuff that took years to research, are then regarded as the 'source' of expertise.

Mike C

[Lang]

Mike,

It is not all one sided. I have often submitted photos in the public domain or my personal photos to various web sites for the enjoyment and enlightenment of those interested. A number of these webmasters carry regular tirades about stealing stuff off their site and spoil the photos with a large watermark or COPYRIGHT written right across it.

The sheer arrogance of these people doing this to photos submitted by their forum members and not sourced or owned by anyone, least of all them, muddies the water. In their rightiousness they have stolen and laid claim to others' work.

Lang

[Dianaa]

A lot of people merely use the Google Image search and use the properties box to identify the source location to repost/republish. So in effect it displays in the new location without actually being re-published. In a recent thread I used Noel Patrick's Scammell image hosted on the REMLR site.

It is the same as those of us who use an image hosting service like photobucket.

The only ways to protect images and text online are with electronic security measures embedded into the website or to watermark your images in a similar manner to the AWM. At least then while they may have breached your copyright at least you are identified as the copyright holder.