[7/31/12] So this is something I learned.
This blog post was linked to on one of my favorite blogs:
Oh boy.
Was it educational. (This blog belongs to a romance author and there are some, well, covers of some of her books which are, well, a bit ris-que. So if you don't want the ris-que images permanently emblazoned into your brain, don't look at the right side of the screen. There. You have been warned).
This author received a letter from a photographer requesting she remove one of his images from her blog, which she had appropriately credited and linked back to him. She was horrified and did so immediately, and he still sued her.
Scary story.
So I've spent a few hours going through every post on my blog and I've either removed pictures, replaced pictures with public domain images (that you can use and not be sued), or replaced pictures with my own pictures. I still have a few more to do, but I'm close to being done.
It's been a huge bit of a pain in more ways than one. One: I really liked some of the images I'd used and hated to remove them. Two: I had to go to each image's site to read the copyright/terms of use statement to see if I could use the images or not. Three: Now some of my posts don't even have pictures, which I think is slightly boring. Four: Since many of my "Weekly Words of Wisdom" posts came from pins on pinterest, which are difficult to appropriately cite, I just deleted each and every one of them. To be safe. And I think I had some really good ones! Now I'll either have to use quotes without having them in a nifty graphic, or use quotes from one of my other favorite blogs (320 Sycamore) where I can use her stuff as long as I credit her with it (because I read her copyright/terms of use statement). Or do a nifty graphic myself. Which is probably not going to happen - it takes T-I-M-E. I know. Lazy. But we shall see.
The gist of the story is that I'd really rather not be sued. That could be so expensive and so not fun.
And even though the chances of this happening are very minute, now that I know that I shouldn't be using other's pictures on my blog (even if I credit them and link back to them), I felt I needed to remove them anyway.
Because I really try really hard to be honest. And even though "everyone's doing it," it doesn't make it o.k. Or honest.
And throughout this process I realized that I really, really, really need to take more pictures. But a lot of the time I don't think about it until the opportunity for taking the needed picture is gone, and then I'm left with a boring there-is-no-picture-because-the-public-domain-sites-don't-have-that-picture kind of post.
I might just have to add that to My List of Things I Must Just Really Get Over.
*Image courtesy of Microsoft Clipart Gallery (which is a public domain so I cannot be sued).
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