Illegal Use of Photos

[gnathaniel]

Originally Posted by TheBlazingAugust

If I remember correctly from a similar thread a while back, anything posted onto the Internet (at least in the US) that is a persons own unique work is automatically under copyright laws. Posting a disclaimer on one's blog stating to never use their photo is therefore redundant, and should not have to be done, because regardless if that warning is posted, those photos are under copyright laws. To me, I think linking to content without permission is like trying to sidestep the copyright laws, and I find it more detestable than downright breaking the law and imbedding a photo.

Cody, the virtue of linking to a content site as opposed to copying and re-hosting is that it provides information about ownership/copyright and doesn't violate the owner's right to choose where images will or will not be hosted. OB threads often turn up in web searches, so anyone viewing this seller's listings and searching for names may stumble across things here anyway. All this seller has done is provide links for informational purposes, very similar to what we often do in discussions here. I fail to see anything ethically wrong with this practice, though it may be polite to notify site-owners when linking for commercial purposes.

I haven't re-read TOS here in a while, but most forums seem to reserve perpetual usage rights to anything posted, and members agree on joining that any content may be freely available to the public at forum management's discretion.

Ray, you probably wouldn't love it if a competitor linked to your site to provide information to their customers, but isn't that a lot better than stealing and rehosting it? At least someone would know it's your info and be more likely to see what you sell.

--Nat

[tropterrarium]

Regular linking is perfectly fine, I say that as someone who sells stock images, so have a commercial interest in my images.

So-called "hot linking" is much more problematic, but can be disabled in the admin section of the source website. Hotlink looks like
<img source="http://www.ronhanko.com/superduperorchid.jpg">
If hotlinking is disabled in the source image admin section, then nothing (or just the generic image icon) is displayed on the hotlinker's page.

Watermarking your images is a first step.

If you don't want anybody to link to your images, then you have to use more involved website programming, so that only members can see it, or only after they acknowledged not to link to it. This can be done with a php script and session-IDs. After that it is pretty much impossible to have a static link directly to a specific image. I've done that for some parts of the sites I maintain. Read php for dummies and have some fun.

Not sure how much you can do on any of the public image or blog sites. That is why I don't use them and have my own domain. FB used to have to worst content policy in that they automatically assume copyright for anything that is posted there. Not sure that is still the case, but I would be EXTREMELY careful about those user agreements and all the frequent changes. That is why I rarely post anything there that I actually care about, and I certainly do not use any social media; total waste of time anyway.

If I see an listing by a vendor with outside links, I am automatically suspicious. So it does not really work in their favor.

my 2c

[goodgollymissmolly]

Ron there is Flickr setting that allows you to hide your photos from searches on 3rd party search sites. It would be hard for other people like this a.. to find your photos. I just activated that on my Flickr account. Kentucky4

[stefpix]

If the image was not embedded but just a link it does not seem to me to be a big deal.

News outlets daily link to other sources for news. New York mag picks stories from Gothamist.

If the content does not get copied but just referenced to me it seems perfectly legit, and not even unethical.

People put links to sites they find interesting on their own pages.

if someone clicked the link on the ebay listing it would be taken to Ron's page. That is the nature of the web. ANd once at Ron's page it is obvious who the copyright holder is.

if the link was just to the image jpg file itself then it would be unethical, but if the link was to a html page it seems ok to me.
Wikipedia references a lot of pages at the end of each article. I doubt that there is permission asked to linking.

I work as a photographer so i especially am against copyright infringement, but if someone links my page for a reason to another I am fine with it. I know it may irk to have your images used to sell someone else's product without permission, but in this case it is just a reference. If someone googled the plat for sale probably would have ended up at the same page that was linked. Then with this rationale we could accuse a search engine to allow vendors use other people's images. I use a small watermark at the bottom corner of the images. I know it can be just a palliative, but after all I want the images to be seen.

[goodgollymissmolly]

I think you missed the point stefano. The Flickr links are not to Ron's Flickr album (or mine), but direct to the image. True, beneath the image there is filename and Flickr user name of the photographer but this is easily deleted.

This is copyrighted material with appropriate notation that it may not be used without permission (at least in my case and I think Ron's also). This notation is not on the image because it defaces the image for other uses that we individually have.

It is an infringement of the copyright law. Problem there really is no remedy readily available because none of us can prove financial harm has occurred at least without spending a lot of money we would never recover.

This is vastly different that linking to say the New York Times where you are actually sending someone to the NYT website. In this case the link is invisible to the reader and the image appears to belong to the e-Bay seller. No question it's an infringement, but like I say all we can do is quit using photo sharing site. This is equivalent to copying a NYT story and posting it as your own even if you don't actually say it is yours...it appears to be.

Just proves that e-Bay is the redneck, flea market that everyone knows it is. If decent people refuse to go there it will go away.

[NatalieS]

Originally Posted by goodgollymissmolly

In this case the link is invisible to the reader and the image appears to belong to the e-Bay seller.

Actually, that wasn't what I saw when I examined the person's ebay shop nearly immediately after this thread was created. It's possible that the seller might have changed it, but they had an awful lot of items for sale and I don't think you can alter a description on an item once it has been bid on (correct me if I'm wrong here).

The pictures appearing next to the items were the person's own, however, when you click on the item to see the description, there is text and then something like: "Here's a link to some nice pictures...". The link is not invisible to the reader - the person has to click on the link and is then redirected to flickr/blog, etc. Some of the links were just to google image searches. I honestly couldn't see any items where the person had illegally misrepresented themselves as the owner of the content.

Ebay was founded in 1995 - something tells me it's probably not going anywhere.

[goodgollymissmolly]

Thanks for the clarification on the information. While I still think it stinks, maybe it's better than I thought. If the seller is making money from sales they should take their own pictures.

You are certainly correct that e-Bay isn't going anywhere at least anytime soon. It's still a low class flea market operation in my opinion, but everyone to his own taste. If you have a better opinion of e-Bay than I, you should encourage sellers not to do stuff like we are talking about because it creates a lousy reputation for the site.

[NatalieS]

Originally Posted by goodgollymissmolly

Thanks for the clarification on the information. While I still think it stinks, maybe it's better than I thought. If the seller is making money from sales they should take their own pictures.

You are certainly correct that e-Bay isn't going anywhere at least anytime soon. It's still a low class flea market operation in my opinion, but everyone to his own taste. If you have a better opinion of e-Bay than I, you should encourage sellers not to do stuff like we are talking about because it creates a lousy reputation for the site.

I would never encourage anyone to do something to offend another. All my posts in this thread have been completely objective and neutral. How I feel personally has no bearing on the legalities of a situation.

As for ebay, I've only used it a couple of times recently so I have no real experience in its use, but so far I've found sellers reasonable to deal with.

[stefpix]

Missmolly, are you sure that the link is to the image only? If it were so only an image would be shown without any text and graphics. It would not say Flickr.

I agree a seller should take their own photos and show what is actually being sold. But if they do not have a photo in this case of the flower I think it is legit to put a link to some webpage that may show that, as long as it is stated that is an external website. Some vendor used links to the IOSPE photos.
If the photo would be embedded in the listing i would see that an infringement of copyright and also stealing bandwidth from the website where the photo is hosted, Regarding the NY Times example it is not what I meant. Sometimes news sites pick up stories reported by other sources and put a link to other websites that broke the story.

if the link would be like this that would be unethical.

but if the link is like this it seems to me legit and ethical
IOSPE PHOTOS

I am going to check the vendor

here they put a link to IOSPE
Schomburgkia splendida Species Orchid Plant.

here a link to bela vista orchids
Laelia grandis vinicolor Species.
the links are to webpages, not to individual images. To me it seems a legit use for reference. The links are to public pages. It seems ethical to me.
Someone could theoretically decide to buy from Bela Vista Orchids.


here there is no external links
at all, the bloom photo may be owned by the vendor

Ophidion pleurothallopsis Species Orchid Plant.

[Lagoon]

Please keep all links of ebay vendors out of this thread. If we see this again this thread will be closed.