Link with love - not litigation, Fair Dealing laws

Link With Love

blogwithintegrity.com

• Public domain does not mean you can use anything you find on the Internet. 

Dear readers: 'Fair Dealing' (Canada), 'Fair Use' (Nine Copyright Myths of the Online World - US), does not mean free, even if you posted it on FaceBook or for your non-profit site. Credit your sources.

Link With Love, is a wonderful teaching tool for those who plagiarize or simply misunderstand. I have dear friends who take professional photos, sell them and/or either donate them to a charity fundraiser, or sell them and donate the proceeds, as I do, to a favourite charity. 

This sign was for Oliver, who loved hunting birds!

When I saw Pinterest, I knew that it wasn't fair, nor was it legal, to post a photo that is not your own, for your own purposes. Non-profit site or not. For example, I have posted 'No Hunting No –Trespassing' signs on my property, despite the fact that you need permission to hunt, because hunters think the absence of a sign is an indication!

With Pinterest, one 'pins' a photo on one's Pinterest page, however, Pinterest stores this image and, like Facebook, can store, or sell the image with no credit for s/he who created it.

In the case of someone designing, for example, crafts (e.g., cakes, sweaters, gift cards), someone takes the image and uses it for their own to draw web traffic. The image is no longer linked to the person who created it.

When someone pins your photo, it goes onto the Pinterest’s servers. You no longer have control of that image, Pinterest does.
Pinterest has been charged with permitting spammers to make money.

Pinterest Spammer Makes $30,000 in a Month

Taking advantage of the startup’s fast growth and optimaluser demographics — consisting mostly of brand-savvy women with an annual household income of more than $100,000 and a love of shopping — spammers are making huge amounts of money just by pinning items to Pinterest and directing consumers to make purchases on Amazon.

Many young people feel that everything on the 'net ought to be free. They are entitled to their feelings, but this is not the legal case.
The worst offenders?

• The media, journalists, who grew up in a world where they downloaded music for free, and feel no shame in on-line theft
• Legal Lesson Learned: Copywriter Pays $4000 for $10 stolen Photo ... 
• SEO Professionals, like Official Consulting, who created Muskoka Cottage Rentals. The 'Muskoka' name draws much webtraffic itself, never mind the hundreds of thousands of people who rent in Muskoka (which is why we left Muskoka)! I haven't taken the time, but am sure some stolen photos are there.
• AG Production, this header doesn't belong to them , or the same photo here. (I've seen this style elsewhere)!

Someone has spent time, energy, and years honing skills to create their intellectual property. Many use the Internet to sell their artwork or photos, or market their products.
Pinterest, a for-profit site, much like Facebook, that earns profits off of you, your data, ads, and selling your photos.

• Panties In A Wad With Pinterest

27 Feb 2012 – There is so much flack lately coming out for Pinterest. ... People are pinning pictures that they have stolen from other bloggers and are ... There's a bakery in Europe that is using one of my cake pictures without crediting me

• When did it become OK to take someone’s stuff without asking?

Pinterest says it will take down copyrighted content, but only if the owner goes through the list of steps on its site, for every piece of content they want removed.


 Is Pinterest a haven for Copyright Violations?
Yes, it is. Bravo to Pinterest for attempting to address copyright concerns by providing a snippet of code so that sites can "opt out". It doesn't entirely resolve the copyright issue, since one shouldn't have to "opt out" of a service you didn't join. How many of us, who sell our photos (I have 12,000 in my archives), have time to check the WWW to search for stolen images?

There are people who go to the trouble of removing a Digimarc, or watermark, and re-adding their own copyright to them.


Can you believe it? One friend, and I have blogbuds who are artists, photographers, and card makers, tells me she found more than 50 websites using her images for commercial purposes without permission.  Google does offer a service, but you have to search by image. Time consuming for those trying to earn a living by their hobby, or their work.

Copyscape
Regularly do a search:
 Google does offered service

To protect yourself:

• Only post low-resolution photos. Thieves need large photos for professional ads. 

• Information for Bloggers and People Who Use Pinterest
• Put this in the HEAD section of your HTML: Download text file: NoPinCode.



Firefox Add-on
to search for
theft of images

• So called reverse image search engines can be used to find copies of your images on the Internet. The most prominent ones are Tineye, Yandex and Google.

More horror stories:

Yahoo! Canada Answers - How to remove a child's photo from ...‎ - 21 Sep 2011
PLEASE HELP! Girl stole my boyfriends friends photo and ...‎ - 22 Oct 2010


Media is the worst! They stole my video, with no credit. You can read my story of theft of my entire video from a TV news outlet. I emailed Dr. Michael Geist (U of O) for a professional opinion, and he confirmed my belief. In fact, for-profit media take videos off YouTube, preface them with money-making ads, then post them on their own websites. This means the creator gets NO webtraffic at the original sight, nor a view count. 

Local newspaper stole my photos, what should I do?

5 Jan 2011 – ...and following all that, keep your photos off of stinkin' Facebook! 

Some other helpful sites

• YouTube “Copyright Tips” page
• The Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Center (US law)
• US Copyright Office (US law)
• UK Intellectual Property Office (UK law)

Do you have a favourite body of water?

Do you have a favourite lake or pond?  This Nature Canada blog post inspired me. I've sat on it since November, 2011, waiting for spring.

I do have a fave. Long Lake, where we cottaged for 50 years! Knowing it intimately, I canoed every inch, and even the surrounding beaver ponds which fed this lake.

I loved spring, when the ice began to thaw, and eventually sank in the warmth. Lakes have a constant temperature of 4 C., down below in winter. This lake is 200' deep.



I loved the fog dancing on the water.

The sunsets.

One of my favourite shots.
Juxtaposition of late winter, early spring!

I loved the ducks, who would do fly-overs, searching for open water.

I captured the sunlight dancing on the waves.

In September, things quieted down!

Once the ice melted, everything began the frenzy of procreation.

Mallard male duck

Not true, as we enjoyed all 4 years
that we lived there full-time.

We did grow tired of the disrespectful sledders, jetskis doing figure 8's, fireworks every night for two weeks on a work night, and the poor treatment of the loons who tried to share our lake. Snowmobiles on thin ice, leaving behind pollution. Melting ice is an accident waiting to happen!

I think this was Eddie and Eva, and off-spring.

Eddie and Eva, who visited every year!

The heron visited often.

We left with no regrets, but some tears.

Here is why we moved closer to Ottawa!
Granddaughters, Isabelle, born May, 2010

Farewell, ducks! Caitlin and Josephine.

Farewell lake!

They trusted us and knew we loved them.
I hope the new owner respects wildlife as we did.

Incoming mallards!

Still as glass in September

I love our critters - here is our new fish!

Here is a pot pourri of critter shots.

Felix watching a hummingbird
on The Nature of Things!
He thought it fun to chase them!

Remember the bison nearby?
Happy to be out of the snow.

Shirley, too. Or Shirley II?
Shirley didn't make it through last weekend.
We drove into Kanata, the nearest tropical fish store,
and bought a new goldfish!
If I can fix my pond I'll put them outside for summer!

Each has their own flower pot for a home! They like to hide when the cats take an interest. Oliver ate Calico's sibling within the first month. In this post he was sitting on the tank. I had to change the top of the tank as he'd broken it twice! He reached in a flipped the fish out somehow. SIGH.

Calico seems to like Shirley 2, too!

Camera Critters #207!

The voices of spring!

First we had foggy mornings, now we have froggy mornings and nights! They are in, yes, the natural 'frog pond'; the spring peepers are in the nearby wetland!
The tree frogs are in the trees, singing or chirping, looking for love!



The happy frogs are singing in the frog pond. There is much action. As I approached they became silent. The odd tree frog would sing, but soon all was silent. Eventually, as I waited patiently, they began to sing and I recorded them.

when you are small
-you hide in a knot!

I just missed the shot,
as the one on the left takes off from the one in the rings.

a wee guy in my hand-dug pond,
which is leaking :-(

Frog pond, nearly melted. It drain into the wetland.
which is below in the background.

The other end of the pond, the high ground and much warmer,
where most of the frogs frolic.

The dead grasses from last year,
with some green beginning to show.

frog floats in bubbles caused by the release of gases

Early spring, fire bans in Lanark County

The bogs are melted in Lanark County. The spring peepers are singing for their mates.

They sound wonderful in the night.
While many have been lauding the early spring, Climate Change or no, there is an impact.

Our flora and fauna are not used to such a long season.

Project BudBurst is a nationwide initiative to help scientists understand the effects of climate change on plants by recording the timing of leafing and flowering of a variety of species.

Early pollen release means allergy season.
There will be smog, and an impact on asthma sufferers.
Spring melts and higher dams, mean lowering barriers to let some go. This means dry ground. We have fire bans in south eastern Ontario.




Yesterday, near the Ottawa airport there was a grass fire. People are being told not to throw lit cigarettes out their windows.

There are worries about the impact to all of us. We know that our syrup producers have had only a one-week harvest. Normally this is a 4 - 6 week period of time. Rushing the thaw has left water high, and land dry.

PlantCam in the wetland

We have a spit of land that goes out into the middle of the wetland. The first few seconds show this. I set up the PlantCam at the end of the spit to see if I could capture any wildlife photos. None! But the sun moving on its diurnal path lent pretty colours to the images.

Spring peepers are peeping like mad!

The spring peepers are singing for their mates.
They sound wonderful in the night.
While many have been lauding the early spring, Climate Change or no, there is an impact, e.g., fire bans.



The wee frogs are singing in the bogs. Hundreds of thousands of them, all raising their voices. It is a lovely chorus. Tiny things, they are liable to being eaten by almost anything; turtles, larger frogs, and birds.

Currently we have limited Internet- as my Apple wireless has bitten the dust. Not bad. I bought it in 2005!
While this is a Muskoka spring peeper video, you can see how much smaller the chorus in a small frog pond.

Foggy mornings followed by sunny days!

Can you see her?!

Down in the meadow, much fog

A closer peek. Buster was at my feet, you can see him in the video.

Lovely foggy mornings followed by sunny days.

The front lawn gardening crew