Bloggers Beware

Well on one random post, I grabbed one random picture off of google and then a few weeks later I got contacted by the photographer who owned that photo. He sent me a takedown notice, which I responded to immediately because I felt awful that I had unknowingly used a copyrighted pic. The pic was down within minutes. But that wasn't going to cut it. He wanted compensation for the pic. A significant chunk of money that I couldn't afford. I'm not going to go into the details but know that it was a lot of stress, lawyers had to get involved, and I had to pay money that I didn't have for a use of a photo I didn't need.

Here's what I learned about Fair Use:

It DOESN'T MATTER...
if you link back to the source and list the photographer's name
if the picture is not full-sized (only thumbnail size is okay)
if you did it innocently
if your site is non-commercial and you made no money from the use of the photo
if you didn't claim the photo was yours
if you've added commentary in addition to having the pic in the post
if the picture is embedded and not saved on your server
if you have a disclaimer on your site.
if you immediately take down a pic if someone sends you a DMCA notice (you do have to take it down, but it doesn't absolve you.)

Plus, beyond not wanting to be sued, most of you who are reading this are writers. Our livelihood depends on the rights to our work. I've already had to send my own DMCAs to sites that have pirated my books. So I definitely don't want to be someone who infringes on someone else's copyright. A photo is someone else's art and unless they tell me it's okay, I don't have the right to use it.

It does matter if you live in Russia or China, cuz you can just say "suck my big nuke, you american capitalist kike"

>>2
Fuck yeah, high five!

-> /lounge/

-> /prog/

This is why, when you have a site, you make sure to pick shady hosts, provide fake details for the domain name registration, and pay with those rechargeable VISA cards that have no name to them, so that if someone feels like suing you, they'll just waste time and money tracking down the wrong person.

And you can fuck with their site in the meantime, if they have one, with application level DoS, spam it with illegal material and then send a DMCA notice to them or report it to the feds, or just get their full name from the takedown notice, get info on them, and start making accounts online with their details asking for CP, post craigslist ads in the "Gay Males Looking to Slap Each Other's Balls" section with their name/number/address, etc.

They'll soon drop it and in the future think twice before sending DMCA requests.

>>6

*tips fedora*