I often write little articles or stories online, because I simply enjoy telling a story. To spice things up a bit, I try to add a couple of pictures or drawings to each story I share. Most of these pictures and drawings are my own. I have a camera, I have pen and paper and I can play around a bit with MS Powerpoint or a paint program. Some of the pictures I use(d) however, where simply found via Google Image search.
I know a lot of us do that. We're technologists, or we have some knowledge of certain business area's, but very few of us are lawyers and have knowledge of copyright regulations.
Apparently this holds a very real risk. Today, I stumbled across an interesting article on image copyright and blogging.
Basically, you can get sued for using an image in one of your blogs. This lead me to quickly review all of my articles on SCN, my personal blog and anywhere else. A lot of the pictures I had been using were not mine, and even though I always referred the source with full credits, this still puts me in violation.
So I removed all pictures where I wasn't sure whether or not I was infringing someone's copyright, and I started replacing them by other public-use pictures.
Up to now, I never had any issues over using pictures in a blog (thank God) and if possible, I want to avoid such problems at all.
A good tip I received from a fellow social-medialist is using Google advanced search and only search for images "free to share".
But even better, is to only use your own artwork.
I know how a lot of other frequent bloggers, like me, use pictures to brighten their articles up a bit.
This information can be very useful for you as well.
This also means that, using pictures of Dilbert in a blog, is not allowed. Not even if you add credits and link to the original page.
As I know how we all love Dilbert and frequently quote him, we have to be careful when embedding one of the comics.
I'm not sure about putting the link to the original picture without embedding it though.
Anyone has an idea?
Another issue I encountered whilst reviewing my own articles, is that I can no longer edit my blogs in technology_innovation . If I can't edit my own material anymore, am I then still liable, or does scn assume responsibility at that point?
It also makes me wonder: If I take a picture of a copyrighted painting and I use that picture in my blog, am I then violating copyright?
Even better: suppose I take a picture of a Porsche and publish it: am I then violating the copyright of Porsche?
Other useful tips on blogging are in the "Build a Better Blog"-series by tim.clark:
- Build a Better Blog (Step 1): Tell the Story You Want to Tell
- Build a Better Blog (Step 2): How to Structure a Blog Post
- About SCN: Build a Better Blog (Step 3): Rules ... | SCN
- SAP Managed Tags:
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