Many times, over the last few years, there have been many stories on bloggers being sued for using other people’s pictures. There are free photo sites like Creative Commons that you can use and only need to give a link to.
We have been accused of stealing and that is part of the issue.
I have also noticed that many websites and social media pages, like radio, gossip, newspapers etc, all do the exact same thing.
If a celebrity posts a picture online it is immediately snatched up by a gossip site or radio station FB page to be used as blog fodder or for getting comments on.
The thing that annoys me is, these websites and pages of these stations and shows, put THEIR OWN watermark on these photos.
Now as far as I know, you cannot do that unless you bought it, took it, own it.
These websites and pages DO NOT own these photos because they have not paid for them, did not take them, and do not have ANY authority to use them let alone put their own copyright or watermark on it.
So why, when us poor little plebes can be sued, are big wig radio and tv stations, or gossip sites allowed to use something they have no permission to use?
I find it disgraceful when the rest of us are trying to do the right thing, the big wigs flout and flaunt the law for their own advantage and nothing is done about it.
Cheryl says
I find that annoying too. Not only that but I occasionally use pictures off of Flickr. They are marked if they are free to use. What annoys me though are the ones that say all rights reserved that are pics of something like a squirrel or a
dandelion or some other "unspectacular" shot. You would nearly think a person that has no actual photography business would want to have their stuff links to other streams for viewing…like blogs.
L.J. Diva says
I know. A billion people would have taken the same shot in the same place of the same common thing.