Copyright and Affliate programs
Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 5:38 pm
Okay, here's the deal: by using these images you're clearly violating copyright. Although I'm not an expert on German copyright law in particular, there are some principles of copyright law which hold across all major countries who are signatories of international copyright treaties. The discussion in the forums about copyright is clearly incorrect.
Specifically, here's a list of incorrect statements:
Well, the sites above have all in common that they don't have any special permission for the images they display. So we should be safe to use those pics.
That's not correct. All of those sites are part of affiliate programs. They have explicit permission from the originating sites to display those images. We don't have any such permission.
I think any image you use from a thumbnail site is past the point of reasonable copyright protection. Also, there's no money being made here.
Whether or not a picture is posted on a thumbnail site has no bearring on its copyright status. Unlike trademarks, the fact that a copyright is widely violated does not change whether or not its copyrighted. Also, there is not likely to be an exception for non-commercial use. Most copyright laws in most places make exceptions for particular uses, such as educational use or criticism or parody, but they do not have general exceptions for all non-commercial use. It may effect the size of the penalty that you would be ordered to pay in court.
So, what can we do about this? It's easy! All that has to happen is that -you- go sign up for affiliate programs. Go to a site and click the Webmasters! link at the bottom and they'll have information about how to join their affiliate program. These affilitate programs will let you use their images in exchange for links to their website. You could potentially solve that by adding a little "images in this web tease come from site X" footer to the bottom of each web tease. Then you could compile a list of sites whose images we can use and make sure that each tease-maker chose one. You might be able to make the galleries available to members. In some cases, the sites in question host galleries of the images that you can link to. But certainly, we could have a list of which sites we're allowed to use images from and go find those images on thumbnail sites.
There's a whole bunch of sites and networks of sites out there, and although this will result in more work for you, it will bring you complete legality and will bring you money if people follow the links and join the website whose images you're using. This may well be enough to cover your hosting costs. As it stands right now, you're rolling the dice. You could start getting cease and desist letters and removal notices, and I don't think that any of us want that.
Smack
Specifically, here's a list of incorrect statements:
Well, the sites above have all in common that they don't have any special permission for the images they display. So we should be safe to use those pics.
That's not correct. All of those sites are part of affiliate programs. They have explicit permission from the originating sites to display those images. We don't have any such permission.
I think any image you use from a thumbnail site is past the point of reasonable copyright protection. Also, there's no money being made here.
Whether or not a picture is posted on a thumbnail site has no bearring on its copyright status. Unlike trademarks, the fact that a copyright is widely violated does not change whether or not its copyrighted. Also, there is not likely to be an exception for non-commercial use. Most copyright laws in most places make exceptions for particular uses, such as educational use or criticism or parody, but they do not have general exceptions for all non-commercial use. It may effect the size of the penalty that you would be ordered to pay in court.
So, what can we do about this? It's easy! All that has to happen is that -you- go sign up for affiliate programs. Go to a site and click the Webmasters! link at the bottom and they'll have information about how to join their affiliate program. These affilitate programs will let you use their images in exchange for links to their website. You could potentially solve that by adding a little "images in this web tease come from site X" footer to the bottom of each web tease. Then you could compile a list of sites whose images we can use and make sure that each tease-maker chose one. You might be able to make the galleries available to members. In some cases, the sites in question host galleries of the images that you can link to. But certainly, we could have a list of which sites we're allowed to use images from and go find those images on thumbnail sites.
There's a whole bunch of sites and networks of sites out there, and although this will result in more work for you, it will bring you complete legality and will bring you money if people follow the links and join the website whose images you're using. This may well be enough to cover your hosting costs. As it stands right now, you're rolling the dice. You could start getting cease and desist letters and removal notices, and I don't think that any of us want that.
Smack
