Eblo

Photo Thieves Should Be Shot

Going back to the topic of pictures, I need to rant a little bit. People need to learn some respect for pictures posted by others. I know the internet is a stealing free-for-all grab-fest and photos/sound clips/etc. get snarfed all over the place. But do me a favor - if you're going to steal a picture from me, which I'm not saying you should, at least have the decency not to link directly to the source on my server. If you steal my or my wife's creativity, don't steal our bandwidth, too. And yes, we know who you are, referrer entries in the logs give your blogs away. If you like our images enough to use them, we're flattered. But at the same time, we're pissed off that you didn't ask to use them first.

How hard is it to drop a line saying, "Hey, I love you pic of xxxx. Would you mind if I used it as a banner for my blog?" Or if you're just linking to it as a 'Hey, look at this cool pic I found. . . .' post, why not give a little credit for where you found the picture? And no, I'm not just talking about 'Look what Google turned up.' How about a pointer to the poem that goes with the picture? How about finding out if the photo has some special meaning to the person who took it?

Oh, well, you can't go to a movie anymore without someone's cell phone going off halfway through, why the hell should this surprise me. People are just damned rude.