Blogging and Copyright

9Aug2008 Filed under: Blogging Miscellany Author: Rebecca Reid

In reading the Poetry Friday website, I came across some significant pointers about honoring copyright on the web.

Mitali at mitali’s fire escape reviews some basic ways to honor copyright when posting poetry for Poetry Friday.
She links to a great article called Websites: Five Ways to Stay Out of Trouble.

While I’ve taken care to avoid breaking copyright in terms of text, I hadn’t put much thought to the photos (oops!). All book covers come from my Amazon store, which has proven in court to be acceptable. As for the authors’ photos from weekly geeks the other day, I realize now that those that I got off Google search are breaking copyright, so I’ll take those down. I’ll also keep image copyright in mind as I blog in the future.

The main thing that stood out to me was this: probably, no one is going to come after me if I do post copyrighted photos. However, the more readers I have, the more likely someone will notice. I want more readers, so I won’t tempt fate!

Am I the only one who didn’t even think of this? What are your thoughts about copyright on your personal blog?

Related Posts on Rebecca Reads:

Please note: All book covers link to my Amazon Associate page; I may profit from your purchases.

Tags: blogging, copyright, website

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9 Responses to “Blogging and Copyright”

Nicola
Saturday, August 9, 2008 at 9:20 am

Hi, interesting post. Gosh, I’ve never given anythought to copyright on my blog. I just take photos of books I already own. Thanks for posting the articles. Nicola
unfinishedperson
Saturday, August 9, 2008 at 10:17 am

Rebecca: Like you, I do think about it and do my best to respect copyrighted photos and poems. I have a feature now on Saturdays, where I StumbleUpon a photo or piece of artwork. For the most part, I haven’t been putting the photos up, unless it is in the public domain or credit is given. Usually, I’ve just been providing a link.

I’m probably not going to rush to get to this week’s Weekly Geeks now that you mention it. It’s not like I’ve personally taken photos of authors. Now off to read your links about copyright…or at least bookmark them and check out later. I have a post of yours about ARCs on which I still want to comment, but I haven’t had time to really sit down and put together my thoughts properly on it. I hope to get to it later in the weekend.
Rebecca Reid
Saturday, August 9, 2008 at 6:30 pm

Nicola, I would imagine taking your own pictures is fine. That’s a good idea!

unfinishedperson, me too, I always credit quotes from text. But I hadn’t thought about photos. The photos on wikipedia are in the public domain, so you could use those. I just took down the ones I got off of a Google search, because those are from individual websites that may be copyrighted.
Blacklin
Sunday, August 10, 2008 at 6:10 am

Hi, thank you for the post. The person who creates the icons I use on my site said that I could use his icons however I wanted (phew!) But I’m letting you know that I’m going to use the link from Stanford. I will give you credit and a link to your site so visitors can also go to your original source.
Rebecca Reid
Sunday, August 10, 2008 at 2:27 pm

Blacklin, Glad this inspired you to think about!
Jessica
Sunday, August 10, 2008 at 2:49 pm

I think this is an issue that more bloggers should be aware of. Like you, I always give credit for quotes, but pictures are a little different. Book covers seems to be okay, but I’m going to be more cognizant of my usage in the future. Thanks for the links.
Rebecca Reid
Monday, August 11, 2008 at 7:31 am

Jessica, I just hadn’t thought about pictures, either!
Mrs S | Blue Archipelago
Tuesday, August 12, 2008 at 9:11 pm

Great post – i hadn’t thought about my book covers – but I get them as part of my amazon associates scheme so that’s ok.
I use the Zemanta plug in for my other images – which puts the link credit in automatically – its worth taking a look at.
Rebecca Reid
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 3:14 pm

Mrs S, I haven’t heard of that plugin, but I’m going to check it out right now! Thanks for the heads up!

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