I’ve long since learned that when my stomach hurts a certain way, I need to pay attention. This was especially useful when it came to evaluating boyfriends in the old days (my wise old Yoda stomach always knew when it was time to dump them!)
And now my stomach has hurt a couple of times in relation to this blog.
Of greatest concern to my stomach have been a few things like intellectual property, copyright, fair use, and the intersection of these things and blogging. I think most of us know that quotes should be properly attributed whenever possible. And the documentation for Wordpress (my blogging host) basically okays the resyndication-by-linkage of YouTube videos (as Wordpress basically handles it by linking to the YouTube videos without actually hosting them) In other words, if YouTube pulls them (as YouTube will, if complaint is lodged) the video will cease to function in a Wordpress blog, as well.
There are also many things on the ‘net for which authorship can no longer be determined. The resume bloopers I posted, for instance, were collected from a number of sites, all without attribution and all appearing on more than one site, as well, thus making it impossible even to identify the original online source.
Jokes are even older than the internet, of course, and even harder to give sources for: really, there are only three basic jokes in the world, I think, and all the rest are derived from these three! (I must confess with some pride, however, that the Marilee Jones joke was almost entirely my own creation…)
Probably the real sticky problem is images, or pictures. Photographers and artists own their intellectual and creative property, and may even depend upon their work to make a living, just as much as writers do. Of course. But many (most?) bloggers post other people’s photos and artwork, while very few (if any) of us are paying for them.
I think there are several ways to look at this problem. “Fair Use” can be a tricky concept, but a great deal depends on whether one is financially profiting from someone else’s work, or using it for educational/instructive purposes, instead. Blogging is commonly viewed as a kind of news reporting or commentary, and therefore would often seem to pass the 4-factor test for legal fair use
However. While using properly-attributed images might seem analogous to including properly-attributed quotations, one rarely uses only part of an image. Therefore, using someone else’s picture is probably more akin to using someone else’s entire poem. And when is (or isn’t) this an okay thing to do?
Another way of using images, which I’ve applied to some (non-profit) websites I’ve managed, is to make them into links to (and therefore, promotions of) the source site. Is that legitimate? (Then, of course, stealing bandwidth is yet another issue, and few perps even know they’re doing it. This is when you link directly to an image online, rather than downloading it first and then loading it to your own host.)
Because of the need to balance the surge of interest in the “open source” democratization of the internet with the need to protect the livelihoods and right of individual artists and authors, an increasing number of images are now made available through creative commons licensing, an alternative to full copyright protection with the goal of encouraging users to “Share, reuse, and remix — legally.”
Anyhoo, for the sake of my stomach, I am going to go back through my posts and clean up a little.
But I would also very much welcome further feedback and suggestions from my readers. How does plagarism and copyright protection REALLY work in the blogosphere, and is it enough? Is attribution enough? Is it best to leave other’s work, especially images, out entirely? (one can always LINK to them instead)
Please weigh in! My stomach thanks you in advance.
— wrote it.
