Who Owns the Copyright? Be fair! Give credit where credit is REALLY due!
Image © Diane Macdonald. All Rights Reserved.
Did you know that it is ENTIRELY UP TO THE USER to find out who owns the copyright to an image before using it? Not being able to find out who created the work, is absolutely no excuse for you to use the work. If you can't find the copyright holder, don't use the work.
If you use copyright work without permission or payment to the owner, you are infringing on copyright. You cannot use the excuse that you didn't mean to infringe. Infringement is infringement regardless of intent!
Think about this for a minute, when an image is licensed through one of the stock agencies, that license comes with certain rights and permissions to thelicensee about how and where the image can be used. All stock images have limitations on their usage. So, if you take an image from a website, or a search engine, you have no idea what the original licensee was authorized to use the image for! In any case, only the licensee was licensed to use it and not you!
A few months ago I wrote this post to help you determine if an image is really free or not. In this example I show how to use Google Images: How To Avoid Copyright Violation And Image Plagiarism - How To Effectively Use Google Images
Personally, I have used a product called Tineye since its inception in 2008. It was created with copyright holders in mind, and as a means to finding copyright infringement).
I have often seen people argue that it's OK to use Royalty Free images because they are free. Really? I have made my living for well over 20 years from the licensing income from my Royalty Free images images! I certainly did not give them away for free! Royalty Free is a type of licensing which allows the licensee to pay once for the image and to reuse it without paying again - with certain restrictions. Rather than go into this in detail again, please read my post, Hey Steemit - Royalty Free Images Are Not Free Images!
Image © Diane Macdonald. All Rights Reserved.
So what is covered by Copyright? Intellectual property – that is original work such as photography, articles, music, sculptures, movies, and choreography etc.
How is something protected and when? The moment a photograph is made or an article is written etc. it is copyright. There is no requirement to register a work to make it copyright. Work must be original, it must be creative and it must be fixed tangibly, meaning that it should be possible to reproduce the work. You must have your original photograph stored on a hard drive or CD etc.
For how long is a work protected? For the duration of the creator's life +70 years thereafter.
What rights does the copyright owner have? EXCLUSIVE right to make copies of the work available for sale or license, EXCLUSIVE right to make derivative works from the original, EXCLUSIVE right to display the work, EXCLUSIVE right to grant permission for the display and use of of the copyright material – and here's the one that is a huge problem on Steemit! The copyright holder has the EXCLUSIVE right to profit from the work!
Now that you have some facts, it's up to you whether you think it's OK to infringe on copyright or not, but the law does not agree with you if you think it is OK. Steemit comes under US jurisdiction and must comply with US copyright laws. Check for yourself on whois. Steemit is based in New York and registered until 2026-02-21!
Image © Diane Macdonald. All Rights Reserved.
I have written and rewritten this post which has been languishing in my mind and on my hard drive for months now, because I wanted to dwell on just one main point – you can't use copyright work without permission from the owner of it! It's that simple! I am not writing this to intimidate you, but rather to educate you about the correct usage of imagery on Steemit.
I don't want to see you or anyone, or Steemit get sued!
By far the safest thing to do is to use your own photography, not eye-candy created by someone else!
If you would like to educate yourself dome more about copyright issues, please read this blog post by @fiftysixnorth.
Also, last year Steem Witness @timcliff wrote this blog post regarding a DMCA takedown notice served to Steemit. I am sure there have been more, and more will come as Steemit continues to attract more members. What's posted on Steemit is not private, but readily available on the web and photographers know how to search for copyright infringement of their images! (Please read the link if you do not know what a DMCA takedown notice is.
Another post I wrote about copyright issues: Copyright - What does it have to do with you?
Thanks for taking the time to read this! I appreciate it.
