Photo Posting Clarification Needed

[Gary S]

Is there any problem with using the [img] function to post a photo from another website as long as credit is given? Or is it more appropriate to post a link?

For example, in this thread, http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic...=26&t=3805, I used a photo of an Accurail boxcar from the Soo Line Historical and Technical Society website and credited the photo to them.

[MasonJar]

Hi Gary,

Using the [img] tag creates a hyperlink that uses up their bandwidth to show the picture here. For someone like a historical society, this might create a real cost for them, and they may not have sophisticated enough software or other resources to prevent such a link.

So in this case, I am going to go out on a limb and say that you probably should either:

1) create a link directly to their site (without the [img] tags - i.e. a link that takes you to their page with the photo in question), or

2) copy it (if it is only one photo), and then attach or otherwise post it here WITH a complete credit (name of source and a link). I believe that the fair use provision would allow this (but not the wholesale importation of their entire website or photo library).

I hope that helps. I appreciate your sensitivity to this issue!

Andrew

[Gary S]

Thanks for the quick response, Andrew. When I am reading posts, I personally prefer to see the photo right there in the thread instead of having to click a link and go to the other website. Lots of times I don't even bother to do that. So, I also prefer to have the photo right there in my posts too. I'll use the 2nd method you mention, and of course, it will be used in moderation.

[MasonJar]

Hi Gary,

I prefer not to have to "click away" to see something, but I now use Firefox and/or Safari which allow tabbed browsing, so it is not such a chore to right-click the link and choose "open in a new tab". Now that my iMac mouse has a right-click, it's that much easier...!

Andrew

[Gary S]

Just thought of something. Doing an image link to another site has a certain danger that the proprietor of the other side could change the photo to something else. I doubt that would be a worry with an image link from a reputable railroading site, but back in another world and time, I was on a forum where an image link was posted by someone else, and then later that link got changed to something less desirable, and there it was on the forum!

[MasonJar]

That's true...! If the link is pointing at something that subsequently gets changed - but retains the same filename and path - you could get a surprise! Also, more sophisticated sites prevent such linking - I think that Walthers is one. Instead of the photo, you get a block of text saying the image is not available or the link is not allowed.

Andrew

[Charlie B]

My 2 cents on this, as far as posting the image here, get permission first, that is only right. It might not seem like much, but I think using an image without permission is wrong. Most people are glad to give permission, as I would be with my stuff, but It really cranks me to see some of my pictures appearing places that have never asked permission that I would be glad to give anyway. I don't care who downloads and saves images for their own use as long as they don't sell them.
As for the tabbed browsing IE7 and IE8 both support it and it is great.
Charlie

[Gary S]

Appreciate the input, Charlie. Are you saying okay to a link, but not okay to a link inside an instruction? Or are you also saying "no" to even posting a link? I don't see alot of difference in those two, just that in one the reader has to click on it, in the other, Big Blue clicks it for you. If someone places a photo on the net with an internet address viewable by the public, I don't see an issue in posting that address either in a link or in a instruction, especially if credit is given.

I actually have mixed feelings about saving the photo and then uploading it here and posting it with credit given, even though it may save some bandwidth for the site where the photo came from.

As for asking permission first, that pretty much negates me using these photos in posts here because I won't send a permission email, wait a few days for a reply, then remember what topic we were discussing to make the post with the photo, and the topic would be dead by then anyway.

Since it really doesn't come up that much, all of this isn't a big deal, but is interesting to think about.

[tomustang]

Gary this is no right or wrong answer, unfortunately.

A photo is publicized then can be used for reference, fair use, since you aren't trying to make money on it or anything like that you should be fine.

On the other side, the owner wants credit or even someone not use their photo... like it's not possible to steal anything on the net



In all fairness you are posting a link to the original work you aren't stealing it, just posting the image link in a code that shows the photo

[tomustang]

By the way, this is one of the worst topics to bring up Only because....

Copyright has the dumbest setup of laws out there and the Gray area of it all isn't set in stone, only local litigation can solve a dispute and even then it's only specific to that one case.



Me? I don't care, If someone assumes I took a photo I post anywhere I don't take credit for it. Nor would I care if anyone reposted one of my photos, Also you should always get permission to photograph private property anyway, so people that obtain rr photos aren't as legit as they think they are.

[Gary S]

In all fairness you are posting a link to the original work you aren't stealing it, just posting the image link in a code that shows the photo

There ya go! I didn't copy the image. I just posted some gobble-di-gook jumbled alphabet, and a picture appeared in its place!

[P5se Camelback]

To quote the grandfather in the last scene, the one in the kitchen in the movie "Moonstruck" ...

... I'm so confused!

It's O.K. to include in your post, on a forum such as this, a link to a photo that is a reference you are using, either to build a model or to make a point ...

... but it's not O.K. to include in your post, on a forum such as this, a link that goes and gets the photo and makes it appear here.

I mean, I took a course in college on Intellectual Property, Patent and Copyright Law (a required course for Industrial Design seniors.) I guess the thing I don't understand is that nothing is being sold here, mostly the images that are posted here, if not of one's own work (which one would assume had been taken by the poster/builder) are usually posted for reference purposes. In my understanding of the laws, posting an image, and giving credit where credit is due is not unlike quoting someone's speech or referring to their written word in a scholarly paper and giving credit reference with footnotes or in a bibliography.

Am I so far off base here? In many cases, tracking down a photographer, some of whom may be deceased (in the case of vintage photos) may be difficult to impossible to do. And there's no telling how long it might take to find them! As far as I can tell, if you were going to use an image captured by someone other than yourself in a work that work that would be published and offered for sale, by all means, in that instance you would need permission ("published by permission" it always says) to use it. But simply using an image as a reference when conversing amongst friends is not a copyright infringement situation (as far as I know.) With the end result (possibly) a scale model, the image is being used as you would an image from a book that several of us are looking at while sitting around a table in a model railroad club discussing the building of a fleet of a particular type of freight car. The only difference is that we are discussing the topic and "looking at the photo" using the Internet as our lunch table and this forum as our virtual model railroad club.

Does that make any sense to anyone?

[faraway]

The owner of the forum might be sued by the owner of the rights of the photo if no written permission has been granted. A photo in this sense is also a cut/paste image of Google or Bing! We all should refrain from doing so because the forum owners are in danger not we the posters.

I am sure you heard about cases where kids ran a fan web page of some movie star with lots of beautiful photos of the star. That has been a costly web page some times depending on the mood of the star. The parents had to pay for their children a compensation for the use of property and the lawyer's bill.

[tomustang]

The owner of the forum might be sued by the owner of the rights of the photo if no written permission has been granted.

This is true, in fact people are sue happy. But in a forum like this fair use is always the case, which would lean more for the owner of the photo losing the case.

Fair Use defined:

the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

[Gary S]

I was doing some research on this and ran across the "fair use" issue like Tomustang just mentioned. Seems that posting a photo here for research or comparison purposes would fall under that category, especially if it is minmal usage. Still, like said earlier, there is no wrong or right answer, as the laws are vague.