Legal Question

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I dont' see how posting a photo and linking back to the source violates fair use though. No one is making money on it, its just referencing it. When you psot a photo to a website like RR Picture Archives, you've pretty much implied you put the photo up there for reference use.

What a mess this all is. The wild west isn't dead, its just on the internet now. so much lawlessness!

Only in the perceptions of the nay-sayers. I note how quickly one individual here accused me of doom and gloom, but this isn't my thread. I simply added the logical extension of all of the fears expressed here, without even a precipitating incident to account for it. "The guilty flee where no man persueth."

The most obvious solution, and by far the simplest, is to post a link to the image and let the reader go look for himself.

You are of course totally correct.

However, I still think its kind of silly that this is even a problem if we are just referencing something.

I think its interesting that people claim "Oh, you have to ask permission because the owner should control how it is distributed!"

So, essentially, the only difference between uploading or [img] tagging the picture, is that the person who is seeing the picture is now seeing it somewhere else away from the content they were reading, instead of right there where it would make sense. You still linked to the photo, and the link and its contents are still associated with whatever it is you posted.

What is the difference then? The only difference is that providing JUST a link can be tedious and inefficient. In the end, the photographer's content is still associated with whatever it is you were discussing. Providing the photo with the link is just the best way to do it.

Again, I agree with you, given the current "ideal" for photo referencing on these boards, a direct link seems to be the safest option, but its just absolutely silly that this should even be a problem.

It shouldn't matter how you post it on the forums, as long as a person can find there way back to the original.