Shame on Me

The Erie Canal
43 11.33 N 075 20.82 W


Yesterday I found the following in my inbox.

Anneli - A'la Foto has left a new comment on your post "Damn Ice Cream Truck": 
Hi!I see that you have borrowed a picture of me. This is without asking if I think it's okay. I also see that you have done it without linking back to me so other people can find out who took the picture! On the plus side, however, is that you didn't remove my copyright mark.I don't think it's okay to borrow photos without asking first, so I'm a little sad. Moreover, it is actually illegal to take a picture without asking the person who created it first! I don't know exactly what it's like in your country but here in Sweden it is in any case illegal!It's okay that you have keep the picture, but still, I feel you should link back to my blog so others can find me! And of course you can also thank me for the loan!

Have a great summer!

What? Me? A plagarist?  I cringed at the implication and I added the link to the blog post, and sent a message of apology to Anneli.

So, what happened?  I can't be exactly sure.  I have no recollection of how I found the picture in question and what clues might have existed wherever I found it that it should not be copied without permission.  That's the problem.

My weakness in writing blog posts is immediacy.  I write something, then I want to push the PUBLISH button immediately.  Then it is posted and out of my mind.   The writing is mine and usually the pictures are also mine.  Once in a while when I don't have an appropriate picture in my archives, I surf the web in search of one.   I use regular Google searches and often Google Image searches.  When I find the picture, it is often unclear who to ask for permission.   Indeed, frequently there is no contact information at all.   Therefore, I've gotten into the sloppy habit of not searching very hard for contact info about who to ask for permission.   To be truthful, even if I have the contact info, I don't like doing it because it forced me to delay publishing my article for a week or two.   In a daily blog where content is contemporary, that's a big deal.

But you see that the note from Anneli didn't ask me to take the picture down.  Anneli wanted me to include a link back to the place where I found it.  That is a lesser demand.  It does not force me to delay publication and it sounds like common courtesy.  I'll resolve to change my practice in the future.

Note: There's no guarantee that I found Anneli's picture on Anneli's web site, so there is some risk that the back link I provide may credit the wrong site. Such is the Wild West Chaos that is the Internet.

What is the long term solution to this problem?  I believe in things like The Wikimedia Commons There, all photographs are guaranteed to be in the public domain.  Eventually (hopefully), their archive of pictures may someday be so large that people like me can find what they want most of the time.  (Today they only have 10,426,841 pictures)  Professional photographers hate that because it undermines their market for stock photos.  But, like many other old fashioned business models, the stock photo business model is doomed to eventual failure because of the Internet.