Swiping images from other sites

[Bullgrit]

Say you have a blog. You want to post an image (for discussion or example or anything) on your blog that you found at another site. What is the proper, polite, legal way to post that image?

1. Do you [ img ] link to it? This keeps the image at the other site, but it uses their bandwidth.

2. Do you copy and save the image to your server and use it? This essentially takes the image, but you don't ride their bandwidth.

3. Do you just give a text link to the image so your readers have to go to the other site to see it? This leaves the image with the other site, but again, it uses their bandwidth. (Plus it basically sends people away from your site.)

4. Should you just leave the image alone?

I've done all of these at one time or another, but I'm uncomfortable not knowing the "right" way to handle it. I don't want to steal someone else's image for my own use, but what to do?

For instance (using a pic relavant to this board), I used someone else's Gary Gygax picture for my March 5 blog post http://www.totalbullgrit.com/2008/03/05/the-dungeon-master/ -- I copied it and saved it to my server. I don't have an image of EGG, and I don't know how to get one. Is doing this wrong? (I don't even remember where I got the picture.)

What if my site was a money-making deal (it's not)? Would that make a difference in how I take/use images on it?

How about taking images from places like IMDB or Wikipedia? Are those sources "open" for anyone to use?

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit

 

[kolvar]

normally, I avoid pictures, but when I find a picture, I would like to use, I contact the person that owns the picture and only with the leave of this person, I download the image and host it on my own page.

 

[Starman]

A lot of professional blogs host the pictures on their own site but credit the photographer within their post.

 

[Merkuri]

The most legal way to do it would be, as kolvar said, to ask permission before grabbing the image unless it's obviously released under some sort of open license (as most of the images on Wikipedia should be).

You should never do option 1. The originating site is paying for bandwith that your viewers are using. Not cool. Some sites jump through hoops to specifically disallow external image views like this because it costs them money.

What you might want to do is grab the image for yourself, host it on your own servers, then provide a link back to the original site. Most people are okay with this, but some are not. For example, if you were to pull down an image of a comic from OOTS and put it up on your blog then I know Rich Burlew won't like it. Use your best judgment when doing this, and when in doubt ask for permission first.

 

[trancejeremy]

Make a drawing of the picture and use that. I used to do that when I had a site about UFOs.

Probably still a copyright violation, since it's a derivative work, but that would be hard to prove.

 

[Bullgrit]

Thanks for the advice, guys.

For the record, I would never swipe and post an image I knew to be a copyrighted work -- like professional photographs or cartoons like OotS. I'm a strong supporter of copyrights. (Looking it up, I think I got the EGG picture from Wikipedia.)

The vast majority of the images on my site are ones I took with my own camera. Some are scanned images of either things I completely own (like my sons' drawings), or things I technically own (like books) that I don't think the copyright owners would care if I post (like book covers.) I think I'm legally and ethically OK with these -- although maybe not with the scans of book covers.

But it's the images from just sort of random places on the Web -- non-professional sites -- that have me wondering the right way of handling them. Like taking a picture posted here on ENWorld and posting it on my site for discussion or illustration.

I'd link to examples, but this already looks too much like I'm trying to pimp my site. That's not my intention.

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit

 

[nerfherder]

But it's the images from just sort of random places on the Web -- non-professional sites -- that have me wondering the right way of handling them. Like taking a picture posted here on ENWorld and posting it on my site for discussion or illustration.

As people have said, contacting the owner would be the correct thing to do. When I've been asked for permission to make a large print of one of my photos I've been flattered, and quite happy to grant permission. I'm sure most people would be the same.

 

[Merkuri]

But it's the images from just sort of random places on the Web -- non-professional sites -- that have me wondering the right way of handling them. Like taking a picture posted here on ENWorld and posting it on my site for discussion or illustration.

When you're taking pictures from "random" places on the web (like this site) the difficult thing is that you often don't know who the original creator/owner of the image is. If you're worried about legal issues, don't use these images at all. Post a link if you really want to reference the image.

If the person who posted it on EN World did so without permission then you'll also be using it without permission when you take it, and while the creator will find it hard to sue somebody based on a forum post it's much easier to sue somebody with an established blog where they're fully responsible for the content.