Wednesday, November 23, 2005

It's number eight

Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law. N. p. Online:http://lexiconoftheorient.com 23 Nov 2005The commandment not to steal, that is. It's number eight, right before don't bear false witness and don't covet. The reason I mention this is that I just finished watching a program on Internet piracy. And I'm not talking about Cap'n Jack Sparrow and the Guys from the Caribbean. This is plain and simple about stealing.

And I don't like stealing. I don't like being ripped off and I don't want to steal from anyone.

You will notice that I try to use some images in this blog. Some of them are mine, some of them I copied from other websites. It's one of those things that you can do if you search "Images" on Google or some other search engine. And I thought that since I was not making any money off the images, that it was okay to use them. Well my conscience tells me otherwise.

I don't know how to do captions - put the photos in a nice box with a caption line giving the photographer credit and all that underneath the shot. I have seen other blogs that do that, but it was a function of the old "hello" photo server they had on Blogger and since Blogger has its own photo server, I have not learned how to do it. I have tried in some of these posts to do that, but the results have been cruddy, so my solution was to do what MSN.com does - put the attribution in the rollover tag, the thing that pops up when you roll your mouse over a photo or graphic.

I'm no lawyer, but I am not sure that what I have been doing is enough. So, from now on when I use an image, I will cite the author, like in an academic footnote, at the bottom of my posts. Starting with this one.

As I said some of the images - including all of the ones from my cruise last year and from various trips Cornelia and I have taken - are mine. But if you like the look of the waterfall or sunset or conch seller or other things I have shot, and want to use it, great, just give me credit for it. Like I said, I don't like being ripped off, and I don't want to steal from anyone else, either.

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Gustav Dore. "Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law." n.p. Online:http://lexicorient.com/e.o/moses.htm [23 Nov 2005].

2 comments:

Jeremy said...

I wouldn't worry too much, there's not much regulation on blogging at the time being; especially since the average blogger doesn't use copyrighted photographs for personal financial gain.

David said...

Yo dude, that was quick. Thanks for the 411 but I still plan to cite what I use. Who knows, maybe I will have someone cite one of my shots some day ;-)