Legal Question

[ezdays]

...It's obvious from the anxious tone of this discussion that we will no longer be seeing many - if any - "public images" without a major change in policy, because very few images that I have seen posted here from other sites give any credit to the originator. Too bad, because this is largely a visual hobby and very much a visual forum.

You know, we can talk doom and gloom, but nothing is going to change. We have always kept an eye on what gets posted here and we seldom call anyone out for posting things they shouldn't. Sometimes if there's a question, we'll ask the person that posted it about it, sometimes we'll discuss it among ourselves just to get a consensus. We are not the photo police, we will not question every post and every photo. We are not legal experts either and so we have to make a judgment if something is "fair use" or "misuse". That's the best we can do, but we have an obligation to at least have a policy that makes sense. If we are ever asked by the rightful owner of material to remove something that they have not authorized to post, we will do so. In my nine years on these forums, I can only remember us being asked once to do just that, once... On other things we removed, except for spam, I'm not sure if we have done that more than a few times either. These forums are over eleven years old and that's not a bad record. Are there photos posted here that are in violation of these laws? Most likely, but our members are doing their best to not do it intentionally, and that's all we can ask.

My point is, don't get uptight, nothing is going to change, we are basically reviewing policy here and for the most part, making everyone aware of their rights and obligations pertaining to copyrighted material... that's all...