respecting copyright - why is it so difficult for many?

General Forums Off-topic Chat
#1

while one can feel honored so find accidentially(!) own renders on different peoples blogs or art galleries, i do not feel happy with this practice…
recently i found a lot of images on the internet that violated my copyright, even commercial use was among them, without asking my permission. just stealing the images from my blog…

there are two versions of copyright violation. one is commercial use of other peoples images without asking for permission. that of course is a big no, no! we all agree on that, i assume.

the other is, using images from other people on the own blog and the galerey of blog, and make a link to the source… now, while the link is at least a polite sign, it is still copyright violation when the author was not asked for permission…

yes it is nice to get plugged, and the citation of the author of the image it seems be fine, but does it cost so much to ask for permission?? surely most of the time i would grant permission, but hell, i want know where my images are on the internet…i certainly would never allow to scale the images to differnt sizes than i have posted, and yes this also happens, without asking my permission, so they fit into the theme of the gallery of that blog …

the creation of my images takes alot of time and effort, and i wish everyone would just ask for permission… yes, there is the risk i say no, because i dislike something of how the images is intended to be used, but i guess, often enough i would feel honored and say yes, but using them and putting in own galerey to shine there without my permission, and i do not get all the comments received from this image there, simply since i do not know the image appeared there, i feel is wrong.

what is your opinion to this?

#2

I totally agree whit you.
Try this link , in my case it works , sad that i have to use this.
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex9/noright.htm

#3

It sucks, but that’s the risk you take when you upload something to the Internet.

For a blog you could simply watermark your pictures. I know that people might not want to do this, but aside from legal action (which might nog be worth the trouble), you can’t really prevent anyone from stealing your pictures.

A simple javascript to prevent a menu from showing can be skipped by simply disabling javascript from your browser.

#4

Personally; I have several copyrights that I got when I was younger. It’s something I will never do again. I don’t have a problem with wanting to be compensated for ones time but copyright law from the beginning has been destructive to the system. It has stunted social growth, innovation and education. This tends to be the issue taken with copyright, though the common reason that people just copy and paste seems to be that they just don’t care or that they think no one will know. Is there no standard any more?

#5

ok, thank you. i am glad that i did not overreact… yes i know one can try via programming the blog prevent copy and save, but that is not the route i want go… so far, i always wrote a polite email to the person in question, (but hell it is taking more and more time…)… i think blonder, you said it right, people are often just not aware what the value of those images is. and i do not mean monetary value, but the value it got from me creating it over so many hours… thank you for your answers. i do feel a litle better, even though the problem is still there.

#6

While I agree and sympathize with you Doris, I can’t help but think it’s a lost cause. I think society has developed a really strong sense of entitlement to anything they desire and that courtesy comes second. I think it’s a new form of greed that helps alleviate guilt. Outside of a legal recourse, I think all you can really do is contact the offenders and make your irritation known. Maybe they’ll co-operate?

Maybe one day we’ll all wake up and start a revival of manners and courtesy, but I doubt it.

#7

Hello, I just felt the need to put my input into this conversation.
I write music and my experience with copyrights is mostly a positive one. Every month I get a nice pay cheque with all the royalties I earned that month.
I can then check online who’s been using my music and on what TV series/game/anything and how long it played for.
This is done through the APRA organization (because I’m from NZ, people from America or Europe will have an equivalent).
APRA collects all these royalties and sorts it all out free of charge and it’s fantastic.
But of-course this is for music. But wouldn’t an organization designed to do this for images be great (yet very hard - impossible to execute).

The most I can say for pictures is to be careful where to put them. If you care about your images not being stolen be sure to read the Terms and Conditions. I know if I upload my music directly to Facebook I then have no rights over what Facebook does with that music. Same can be said for the blog you uploaded your pictures to. If you are running your blog through a company, when you upload your image to there server they can technically take ownership of the image and redistribute it how they please if said in there Terms and Conditions. It’s pretty scary stuff.

#8

That’s something quite prevalent in this modern world. Some I guess like me would simply state that “hey, I was never gonna spend euro’s on that, but since’s I can download for free, mate lets do it anyways”. But yeah, for commercial use, no way.

#9

Most of the collections I see have a disclaimer somewhere to the effect that if the copyright owner contacts the pirate, the work will be taken down. I don’t know how well they honor those statements, though.

If someone is using your work on their blog in an attempt to make their blog more attractive, attract likes and page views, it is a commercial use. Whether the person has monetized their blog (yet) is beside the point, the opportunity is there for them to make money by putting advertising on their page and attracting views using your work.

People should ask permission. You have a right to control the copies of your work, where they are displayed, what they are displayed next to, whether they are modified, and so on. Blonder may have issues with copyright law, and lord knows it has its flaws, but it is all we have to work with at the moment.

If someone refuses to take down your work after a request, or fails to respond to a request in a reasonable amount of time (a few weeks, perhaps, unless it is a commercial site) send a note to their isp requesting the isp take action to prevent theft of your work.

#10

thank you, i really feel better now, knowing i am not weird, but it is right to wish copyrrigt to be respected… yes, smxham, i know i need be careful myself where i upload my images. and i am. i do not use facebook or google+ exactely for that reason you mentioned. and thus, i get mad when someone, as has happened, takes an image from my blog, or here from blenderartists, and puts it on google+ or such. but, it is not googple+ or facebook etc that colletcs my images, but individual persons, that do it…
yes, it seems i can nothing do, than either post never images on internet again, or always contact the people that violate my copyright (when i notice that is). but this is really annoying,so far they did take down my images then, but some are even then saying they did not do any wrong, it were just advertise for me.sigh… as you said, the problem is probably that these people often do not have the feeling it might be wrong what they do…

#11

Well, data is easy to copy. And people are afraid of rejection. One thing you can do is to put a copyright notice into every picture of yours together with the link or maybe even a qr code. That way it’s clear they should ask permission.

It takes one additional step to ask you, so one substitute additional step to remove the copyright notice might compensate that a bit for the better. Personally if I was worried about usage, I’d just slap my domain name and a signature on them and call it free advertising. I could use free advertising. Depends on what is more important for you, hunting wrong doers or gathering a following.

My situation is so extremely bad atm that worrying about small stuff seems like a waste of your happiness to me. Remember, it’s not what happens to us that determines how we feel, it’s the interpretation of what we think it means. And in a way, using your stuff actually means appreciation. Even if someone else claims it as his own. Not that I support this practise. I try to honor copyright when I can.

Cheers
Haunt

#12

There’s another issue IMHO that I don’t think has been touched on here. Google Images makes it really easy to unintentionally violate copyright. By that I mean, there is a community of people out there that assume if something shows up on Google Images it is public domain which we in this community know isn’t right.

John Q Public on the other hand (and I’m shocked to say at least one web developer I know) fail to recognize the fact and willy nilly use whatever they find in their web pages, brochures, etc. etc.

A club I belong to is guilty of that in spite of my telling them they are off base.

By the way: one of the reasons I started using blender was so I could avoid using other peoples artwork and create my own.

#13

That’s one of the flaws in our current copyright laws. Technically, when ever you click on a google image thumbnail, your computer downloads (copies) the full sized image and displays it on your screen. Now, you may have done that for educational purposes (fair use exception), but if you just wanted to look at the image because you enjoy it, you and google have just violated the copyright. Ridiculous, huh? But there are so many heavy players in the ‘intellectual property’ market, not to mention marketeers and ‘terrorist hunting’ black agencies in the electronic data game, that attempting to modify current laws to make them more sensible, humane and beneficial to the public good would be likely to make things worse, rather than better.

#14

yes a copyright note on each image might the way to go, though my feeling is against it, as it however faint disturbs the image… yes, also, google image search does that,but, as far as i know, it is not against copyright to save an image onto your own computer for your private view only. i think this is good, as it allows to download images for study. however, as you mention, it after that often happens that it is forgotten where this image comes from, and hence used freely, and posted on blog, for example…

many cases i had, they did claim “they do nothing bad”, and somehow i believe them, the internet really makes it somewhat hard to see where “property” is…on the other hand, people with blogs that post images should inform themselves about copyright…

#15

I hate to say it, but … “possession is the second part of …”

If you allow someone to possess “whatever it is that you claim possession of,” in an unadulterated form and without apparent obstacles … then … let’s face it …"it’s gone."​

#16

but the internet is made for sharing, most sites have tumblr facebook pintrest etc buttons so that if someone comes across your work they can just share it on their own network, by uploading to these sites your basically giving permission for sharing to happen. check the terms of service for the upload site you use, you will see you have given away most of your rights. the only way to keep some semblance of copyright is to embed your details in the image, basically sign your work if its something you care about. this doesn’t mean necessarily a big “dot copy me” watermark across your image, just sign it, like a painting. no one can mess with it then, whatever they may claim in their terms, 'cos it has your name on it. well, it can still be copied, but there can be no dispute over ownership!

#17

???
I always believed it was created with the intention of communications. For US defense force.

#18

It was actually for coordinating nuclear strikes. :frowning:

#19

That’s either an urban legend or a conspiracy theory. It was developed so scientists working for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency could communicate with each other. It was not and is not secure enough to use for anything to do with operational control of nuclear weapons. And ARPA (DARPA’s predecessor) was formed, not for nuclear weapons research, which had its own agency, but in response to the Russians sending up Sputnik.

#20

lol no it was developed by CERN to allow information to be shared between departments efficiently. the US simply were the first to use the idea because of its benefits to their military strategy