For those of you who are regulars, you might notice the lack of the Have Your Say graphic that I normally post along with this feature. However, the lack of an image at the beginning of this post is directly related to what I want to discuss today: the questions surrounding using Internet images on blogs. You see, I made the Have Your Say graphic awhile back, and while I'm certain that I used a picture from Flickr's Creative Commons that gave permission to build and adapt upon the image, I also apparently neglected to cite the owner of that image on my features page. I noticed this today while doing some general updates on my blog, and though I've been going through images on Flickr, trying to find the original image that I used, I haven't had any luck. So I took down the image for now, until I have the time to either find the user of the original, or make a new graphic.
Having to do this brought a lot of different thoughts and questions to mind, hence today's Have Your Say topic. Honestly, there are probably too many of these thoughts floating around my brain for me to be able to voice them all in a single post, but I'm going to try to do my best, because I think it's an issue that the book blogosphere would benefit from discussing. I also tried to address some of the questions that I thought other bloggers might have. If you decide to keep reading this post, you'll see the various questions/statements in bold below, followed by a more detailed explanation in regular font.
1) I follow quite a few blogs that have posted images in their posts without citing their source. In fact, this happens a LOT. Personally, I know when I started out blogging at 19, I didn't think twice about heading to Google for an image that suited my post. At that age, when I uploaded a photo that I found on the Internet, especially ones that I'd seen used all over the web on other sites, the thought that I could be breaking some part of copyright law didn't even cross my mind. Of course, I was familiar with the idea of copyright law, but in my head, copyright was restricted to things like books and music CDs. Images? I had no idea. But as I got older and learned more from my courses at college, I realized that images fell under the umbrella of copyright protection as well. As a result, I've been pretty careful with the images I use here on Mindful Musings for at least the last year and a half.
2) Copyright law can differ from country to country, and the blogosphere is an international space. This can make it difficult to figure out where the parameters are. For example, what your friend over in Spain might tell you is okay might actually be different here in the United States. Which brings me to...
3) Legalese! It's so hard to understand! And you're right. It can be. Most of my friends and family members are very sketchy on the law, even though 75% of them are native-born citizens of the United States and have lived with these laws for the entirety of their live. I mean, they know that if they finally cave in and make a shiv and shank their annoying boss one day, they're looking at a ride to the big house. But civil law can be much more complicated, especially for those who are unfamiliar with legal jargon and procedures. While I spent four years on my Mock Trial team in high school and read a lot of my state's laws and statutes during this time, I'm still not educated on every aspect of the law. In fact, when comparing my knowledge of the law to the amount of legal documents out there, I know virtually nothing, and I've actually spent some time researching and reading about it. What about the people who haven't?
4) But I started blogging as a hobby and I don't get paid for it. I don't have the time (or motivation) to go research all of those laws! This, I think, is a big one for many of us book bloggers. I know that most of us tend to have planners filled to the hour with things to do, places to go, people to see, family to take care of, jobs to work, etc. I know many bloggers (including myself) have taken hiatuses because of a sheer lack of time. Adding yet another responsibility to their list could doom a blog to forever stay in that inactive folder in your Google Reader. And a large percentage of book bloggers receive no compensation for what they do, other than books to read for review purposes.
4) All my friends are doing it. To which my mother would reply, well, if all your friends jumped off a bridge, WOULD YOU? But what about sites like Twitter and Pinterest and Facebook, where images are used all the time without permission or citation? Here's the deal. A lot of people get away with image copyright violation. I mean, it's happening probably every other second on the Internet (that's a guess, not an actual statistic, just to be clear). However, the way copyright law works is that, if the owner doesn't press charges, you're pretty much in the clear. Because of the size of the Internet and the nature of the images that are usually used, you don't find a whole lot of people running around and suing the pants of of bloggers for the unauthorized use of images. In fact, in my three years of blogging, I have never heard of anyone in the book blogosphere getting "officially" (meaning by the law) busted for improper image use. But technically, the way a lot of bloggers use images can be breaking a law, even if it's one that isn't often enforced.
5) What about book covers? Some of you might be wondering why all of us book bloggers haven't been slapped with fines or suits because of our extensive posting of book covers without citing where they come from. Though this hasn't been officially declared (at least, not that I'm aware of), the use of book covers in reviews is protected under the Fair Use Doctrine (at least, in the U.S.). If you're in the academic world, chances are, you love this law to pieces because it makes things a LOT easier for you when giving presentations and working on projects for class. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this law, it basically allows the use of images (along with other forms of media) for educational and critical purposes, which means that, as reviewers, our butts are pretty well covered. Not to mention that I can't realistically see any publishing company coming after someone for publicizing one of their books. I mean, you never know, but free publicity? It's a pretty solid deal for them.
6) With all this in mind, what should I do? Does this mean I should go through every single blog post I've ever written to make sure I didn't improperly use an image somewhere? Does this mean I can't ever use an image from Google again without tracking down the owner and making sure I have permission and give credit? And God forbid...will other bloggers start accusing me of plagiarism?
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This last section, I don't really have the answers too. I can say that for me, personally, I've been making an attempt to better adhere to copyright regulations regarding images for some time now, and I plan to continue this in the future. However, regardless of how similar to plagiarism unauthorized image use seems, I'm not here to condemn anyone for it. That isn't the point of this post. The point is to discuss a topic that I think is extremely relevant to the book blogosphere. I'm a strong believer in the benefits of collaborative learning, and that's kind of what I'd like this to be...a learning experience for all of us.
Because I'm thinking I'll probably do a follow-up discussion post to this one, I've also included a survey about this issue below. It's only one question, and it's completely anonymous. I have absolutely no way to track answers, if you're worried about that. For providing a statistical basis for later discussion , I ask that you please take a couple of seconds to answer the one question below, if you feel comfortable doing so. I hope to use the results in a future post!
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