Ministry of Propaganda - 16/Jul/2003: "Respecting other people's work"

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Respecting other people's work

On my various websites I have several hundred pictures. Especially since Google Image Search went live I find more and more direkt links to my pictures. Most of the time some "free website" services and discussion forums are the usual culprits. But there are also others.

Some people still have manners: Littleboy at Nu-Produkt linked to one of my pictures to illustrate an entry (just linked, not embedded). When I (half-jokingly) commented that I would like some credit, he reacted and gave me the credit. For which I would like to say: Thank you. Cool reaction. And since Nu-Produkt is not a commercial site I'm OK with that.

I'm not so happy about what others do: This Czech News Website (from the looks of it a commercial site) took one of my pictures and just used it to illustrate an article. Yes, they gave me the credit (and sent lots of visitors to my site), yet they never asked me for permission to use my picture.

I've got two issues here:

• Using up my bandwidth: I find it very annoying when other people directly embed my pictures into their pages or entries in a forum. I have to pay for the bandwidth, but I don't get anything for it. As the picture is loaded every time someone visits the page my bandwidth gets a hit every time. What is so difficult with just linking to the page with the picture or only linking to the picture (not embedding it) with some credit for my work?
• Using my pictures without permission: I don't have a huge problem with non-commercial sites, but I'd still like to be asked. Isn't that common courtesy I can expect? It really pisses me off though if commercial sites take my pictures without my permission. If I were to just take their text and republish it, I'm sure I would have their lawyers all over me...

Am I overreacting? Am I right? How do you deal with this, if you have lots of pictures on your site?

End of entry

Entry trivia

When writing this entry the weather was: Muggy. Cloudy.

When writing this entry I was listening to: nothing

During the last hour before I wrote this entry I visited this website: Nu-Produkt

End of entry trivia

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