NO attribution required!
It's come to our attention that more information is needed when it comes to the complex system of copyright law in the SteemSTEM community and Steem on the whole.
If you've used images in your posts, the chances are you've broken copyright law in some way without even knowing; you'd need to be a professional to truly get it right. It's very complicated.
Furthermore, different countries around the world have different stances on the matter, from 'Copywhat?' in China, to 'I'll sue you for everything you've got' in the USA. With that in mind, it's far better for us to just play it safe and spend a few minutes understanding our position in the legal framework of blogging.
Why bother?
For most people, the idea of getting away with it is a tempting one, and the reality is, you probably will - until you don't.
As Steemit grows more into the public eye, legal issues will become an increasingly dominant issue, with lawyers actively seeking out such breaches of law for their clients, and artists expressing increasing frustration for a website that has already earnt the reputation of a lawless community.
The idea here is twofold:
To stop the habit of copyright infringement before its roots take hold and you suddenly find yourself in trouble a few months from now
To prevent potential liability of others in the community's unwitting felonious acts.
Given that we all have a different level of understanding of what copyright actually is, I'll start from the bottom and work my way up:
What is copyright?
Copyright is a legal right. When an image has copyright, the creator has a limited period where they have exclusive rights to said image, if they wish.
What many people don't know is that copyright is established as soon as the image is created. As soon as you throw a tub of paint onto the canvas, that has copyright law attached. Because it is a right, there is no need to go to some public office to get your paperwork approved legally or anything like that. It just is.
It is up to the original owner to decide how their work is to be treated, distributed or manipulated and this is something you should look out for when taking images from the internet. So here's a guide to keep in mind in the future:
Public Domain
This is hopefully where most us Steemians will be spending our time, but we need to distinguish between images that are copyrighted, and ones that are public domain - material exempt from copyright law such as names, idioms, memes (for all intents and purposes), government work and so on.
With Google, you can quite easily find the advanced usage rights options in image search which often (but not always) provide Public Domain imagery
Simply go to Images --> Tools --> Usage rights --> Labeled for reuse, and this will likely lead you to images from sites such as Pixabay, Flickr and Wiki Commons:
But even these websites abide by the following system:
Creative Commons
Creative commons licensing is not simply applying the right to do whatever you want with an image and make sweet, sweet STEEM from it. It is simply a non-profit Organization in the USA designed to expand legal use of creative material.
Their licenses are found everywhere - including Wikipedia - and come in numerous forms you should be sure to check:
CC0 is equivalent to public domain.
Attribution (BY) allows the same rights as public domain including for commercial use - as long as you give credit to the original author
ShareAlike (SA) allows you to do the same, but any variation or manipulation thereof must abide by the same open terms as the original.
Noncommercial (NC) is pretty much what it sounds like. You can share it as much as you want - without making money from it.
NoDerivatives (ND) limits usage to purely the original state. Modification is not allowed unless permission is otherwise granted.
You may see combinations of these states of copyright, for example you might find BY-ND, which allows you to share only the original work, but permits commercial usage. Or you might see BY-NC-ND which means you have to credit the author, you cannot manipulate the image, and you cannot make money from it.
You can find the info on the bottom right of images in wikicommons. This image can be used however you please, but cannot have extra rights added to it and the author - Аркадий Зарубин (Arkady Zarubin? My Russian is rusty) - must be credited
Fair Use
This is kind of the exceptions to the rule of copyright, and it's where a lot of grey area kind of sits awkwardly, waiting for somebody to slip up. Mistakes here can be found all over the Internet from YouTube to, well, Steemit.
Fair Use allows limited, commercial use of images and words for the purpose of research, education or even simply to benefit the public as a whole.
When it comes to commercial use, this really boils down to a case-by-case basis, and if you're using specific images you can't otherwise find on Google, it's a good idea to check the website's FAQ section or contact the owners themselves. Each website and company will likely allow varying degrees of usage, so it's important to check if you're not sure.
In the case of sciencex.com:
Students, teachers and professors are free to use, reproduce articles and copy Science X content for academic purposes without obtaining prior written approval. The only request is users shall provide a credit and source URL link of the original Science X article.
Users may copy, transfer or reproduce up to 200 words of an article or story and then insert a hyperlink back to the original Science X content. By following these steps, no prior written or oral permission is required.Source
In the case of the comic XKCD:
you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them).Source
And in the case of YouTube, well, there is no specified duration of using a video clip in a manner of fair use, but its usage should be sensible, basically.
Open Access Journals
If you are looking for more specific information on STEM-related subjects, it can be an incredibly expensive and annoying process, especially for bloggers who may want to find sources from numerous databases.
That being said, there are tens of thousands of Open Access journals offering hundreds of thousands of articles with no legal boundaries to be limited by.
There are many notable journals to be considered but for the sake of this post you can simply visit The Directory of Open Access Journals, browse the Wikipedia list of Open Access Journals , or search for what you need on Google Scholar and check for copyright details in any given document, usually at the top or bottom of the paper.
It's all too complicated!
Yeah, that's one of the main drivers of copyright theft. Ignorance is bliss right?
But it't not as hard as you think.
- Look out for CC0 or public domain images.
- Use the advanced search tool on Google and briefly check the image rights - for the most part, the results will be acceptable and plentiful.
- Check the information readily available on the websites you take your images from
- Contact individuals whose unique images you want to use
And really, you should make sure to credit the image source no matter what. It's just easier this way. But this doesn't protect you from infringement if you don't abide by the above rules. It just helps your case.
DO NOT Simply provide a link to the wikipedia homepage or the fullscreen image of a google result. The goal here is to credit the author/creator. By providing a link to the image on Google, that doesn't provide any clue to who created the image, and so it's a waste of your time. It only takes 5 more seconds to provide the correct link.
In fact, this whole process should really only add a few extra minutes to the work you put in and results in your contribution to the health of Steemit, SteemSTEM's contribution to the academic community and a good, honest day's work.
If when writing a SteemSTEM post you still need help searching for research information that is public domain, or are generally confused about one of the many grey areas, there are plenty of well-informed veterans and willing helpers to guide you in the right direction on our SteemSTEM discord server, which you should have joined by now already, anyway!
Good luck!
-- @mobbs
@steemstem
I like free copyright photo websites like:
Www.pexels.com
Www.unsplash.com
Www.stocksnap.io
@josteem
Good resources!
I was just about to comment these :)
@dromzz
Same thinking :)
@josteem
For websites like pexel or instagram you should also mention the account of the image owner
Thanks, I think this will make my work easier
This is a great post about a topic that we often don't discuss too much here on Steemit. I really think there are many popular bloggers here who need to improve their use of crediting images, and as you said, it's not really hard once you know how to do it.
I have always taken the extra time to properly find and credit images that are legal to use on my blog, and not only is this a guarantee that I won't get in legal trouble, it also feels great to know that I am using photos from people who wants their photos to be spread, shared and enjoyed, instead of stealing images from someone who do not want this.
I find most of my photos from Wikimedia Commons, which is a great resource for CC images. All photos there can be used for commercial use (which Steemit blog posts by default is unless you decline payout), as long as you give proper credit. Their search function is far from the best, but it is just fine when I mostly want photos of different species of animals.
Thank you for raising awareness! I actually uploaded some of my photography work as CC0 here on Steemit and I really hope that we are going to grow the number of contributors we have on the #cc0
https://steemit.com/photography/@gentlehuman/i-decided-to-share-those-pictures-for-any-usage-now-this-work-is-licensed-under-a-creative-commons-cczero
That's a nice idea! The more that follow you, the less people need to steal!
I just took a look at your post @gentlehuman. I have so many photos dating back decades that I wouldn't mind being used for free, and going to look into this myself, thanks.
exclusive information about copyright images thank @mobbs
This is quite useful.
Since we all (in the steemSTEM community) write education articles, doesn't everything fall under fair use?
About author crediting, is it sufficient to link to the source where the author is named (I mean specific page, not generic homepage), or do we have to name him under the image?
Personally I think it's just courteous to put as much info as you can, but for example in wikicommons it will often say in parentheses that you're free to use it as long as you credit the author, so we should probably adapt accordingly.
Regarding education yes, I've found that legally it's a grey area when it comes to earning from it - whether you're a registered educational facility or whatnot. One of the areas I didn't want to start diving into in this post...
The Wiki Commons has been a great resource to me for chemicals and other science related pics. Its easy to make mistakes on this platform given the lack of oversight, but I'm glad this post can lay down some guidelines.
I was stunned when I've seen that the screenshot of the Tweet is violation in the US, link
Oh yeah super recent news too.... crazy
XIX century law collided with XXI century technology. How is that the same photo, if it's smaller, compressed 10 times, put together in another photo...And doesn't contribute more than 5% to the news - I have no idea.
Even reproduction of art (graphic) loses the value after 10 or 100 copies, because the quality . False Mona Lisa is worthless but the photo is sacred. Right...
Oh wow, that's kind of crazy in my opinion!
Great warning and guideline from you sir @mobbs
This is a very timely useful information. I wanted to make a post on this. Thanks a lot.
Thank you for this good information.
This is an interesting and educative post, now I understand better and most steemians have fallen victims and thanks to @greenrun for putting me through the last time. I think I draw some of my images just to avoid some of these.
Nice on steemstem
It's always fun when I find a fair use image being used by someone else, but can't find the original- back to searching!
very excellent post
thanks for the information steemstem, this is a very useful law steem which you need to comply with all the inhabitants of our site, thank you for the information dear friend
Incredibly informative and useful post. Thank you for sharing this!
Wow infact @greenrun just tell me about all this. What a timely information. Thanks to #steemstem
nice post sir
thanks for info
Wonderful
Educative
It applies to every aspect of one's life not just steemit
Thanks for the lecture
Thanks for this technology and engineering sharing.....
actually present time i reading computer science. keep it up resteemit
This is very important info. Copyright issues could pose a major problem to Steemit as a whole.
A guide like this was long overdue, I'm very glad that you've taken the time to properly explain how copyright works.
I must admit that I've made some mistakes in the past by not giving proper credits , but I'm always giving proper attribution now.
Last but not least, we should all be very grateful for people sharing their work under permissive licenses. I personally always try to donate something to artists that publish under CC or public domain.
That's a great idea. When I email certain researchers for permission I do a little offer of giving them steem if they sign up to steemit haha... they never do yet =/
awwwwwwn, mobbs. I love you!
impressed & wonderful!
This is good. A well detailed information. Thank you @mobbs and @steemstem .
I like free copyright
Thank you! @steemstem - A very important topic and often ignored or neglected.
There are many great points here, but my favorite is: "the idea of getting away with it [copyright theft] is a tempting one, and the reality is, you probably will [get away with copyright theft], until you don't [get away with it and paid for it]".
I will resteem it.
This is timely!!
Just when we needed clarification about this mystery subject
this is very useful information for me and I am just learning it from you @steemsteem
you are good sir for me, thanks
This is really expository.
I may have been guilty of this until very recently when I was corrected.
Ignorance is actually not an excuse in law though :)
Nice piece @mobbs
excelent clarification
Thank you for the wonderful tips.
The Copyright approach can be simple: search the source, ask for permission.
Source:
http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/aa/aae2c5f462de77979a9f6cbc97ed99860d5e3c1b703041122f5538d237a3754f.jpg
Yep seems kinda common sense but it takes tiiiime and efffoorrrrttttt. I actually enjoy dropping emails to them, making little acquaintances in the field
Glad i walked into this at the right time. very expository information and now, i have to up the notch in my search for images
Great post, long needed information! One thing I would like to know is if using an image of a product or service for the sake of reviewing can be considered fair use.
That's one of the grey areas I didn't want to dive into. With YouTube for example, there's an often quoted time limit of footage, something like 15 seconds, that you can use for fair use, but I don't believe that's actually written anywhere and it just comes down to ratio of video:borrowed footage mixed with common sense. Comes down to the individuals to decide if they want to attempt to sue or cease and desist.
I imagine the same applied to written work, but... yeah it's gritty
Thank you! i admit i am guilty of siting a pictures full screen source as i figured that was THE source of the file. I will now take the extra time and source the author. I wish you could do another post like this focusing on HOW EXACTLY one would label the sources in a blog. After ever sentence? If so what if the same source is used for multiple sentences?
I don't think this is worth a whole new post, if I understand you right. You can label sources however you please as long as it's sufficient. If it's a direct quote, I put in block quotes
And include the sources at the bottom with adequate description. Others add a footnote-style aspect to their postss like this1 <--- in which you can put 1, 2 or 3 repeatedly for multiple uses.
Basically as long as the authors or artists are noted, and they've given permission to do so, you're doing it right =)
Thank you for specifying @mobbs. Correct sourcing is of absolute importance to me when it comes to steemstem or steemit in general. Im quite versed in the writing styles of scientific journals and have really only been very active on steemit for the past 3 months, and only aware of steemstem the last month an a half. Ways of sourcing information have not been clear as I have seen it done absolutely to the book as well as "loosely". Honestly it should have been obvious to me as this is a source of revenue and can very well go under copy write infringement. Thank you for specifying and also confirming to me the strict guidance I will now adhere too. I would just like to do things right.
Glad you found some value here! Yeah most mainstream journalism fails to meet many of these requirements, often citing their own home page as a source, or just not citing anything and just adding a footnote in the about section. Not sufficient but enough for them to bypass law, for the most part I guess
Great article. One of my favorite resources, Project Gutenberg, offers some ideas on what is "free". I refer to Gutenberg for a lot of my research. Mostly public domain, mostly available for copying, with some caveats. You can use text and also capture images in screen shots. Follow the guidance of Gutenberg in doing this. Rules vary by country. I captured the image here from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (copyright 1916). In most cases, I like to attribute material because I think this is courteous and also because readers often like to know sources. Usually, if readers see you've taken care in preparing your material they are likely to place greater credence in what you're offering.
Courtesy is something most of us completely dismiss! We should be grateful that the perfect image for our need is openly available. If we can thank people for holding a door open for us, we can surely thank them for providing imagery for us regardless of the legal position!
This is the most detailed explanation of what it takes to be safe from copyright infringement. Truth be told, without SteemSTEM, my knowledge of copyright would be limited. I have learned so much from writing according to SteemSTEM guidelines. Of course, I think nothing of it until someone new to it would ask me to look at their post or show them how it is done, then I would seem like an expert sharing the little I know.
With this post, though, I am sure that I could get better by referring back to it with time. Thank you, @mobbs for taking the pains to make it so detailed. Thank you #steemstem.
We're all contributing to the betterment of Steemit, you included!
Some more than others but thank you for saying that.
I find noncommercial (NC) restrictions in licences such as Creative Commons (CC0) very interesting on a platform such as STEEM since a court may see CC0 NC content posted on STEEMIT as breaching the noncommercial restriction since you get upvoted and earn Steem Dollars (SBD).
I guess we will have to wait for a court case to find out or anyone who can share some more light on the topic?
Nice topic. As mentioned in this article, anything greater than CC0 requires citing the source, however it also requires a link to CC license being used.
Attribution Example:
*"You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. "
There is an attribution link with all of the items above on the download page from the CC website when selecting the image. --3D
What a very informative and explanatory post!
Hey @mobbs,
this is great! I recently discussed the matter with @justtryme90 and @lemouth, as I was quite worried about this. Especially paywalled papers, as "re-telling" and "commercial use"(what blogging on steemit is) are prohibited (they are not "Fair Use") and there are no clear rules between "own creation" and the "re-telling" if you write an article about something. @lemouth was able to calm me down in this manner, but surely copyright is an essential topic for Steemians! As I wanted to like your article more than once, I upvoted every single comment of yours. You deserve it for this important guideline! Resteemed!
Steem on,
dysprosium
haha thanks! But this post only scratches the most obvious surfaces - I think sufficient for all of us to be legally safe to an extent on par with say Facebook and YouTube. But there are so many nitty gritty aspects that go way over my head... Worry about that later lol
Thank You! You have included (almost) everything I wanted to write myself, so I am resteeming for everyone to see!
upvoted for support steemstem :)
This is an excellent much-needed post for steemians. We have been fighting copyrights and plagiarism for a while. Myself and few other fellow steemians have identified many plagiarized posts and reported it to steemcleaners.
Some members are doing it intentionally and some members are doing it without their knowledge. I'm sure this post will help members understand the seriousness of copyright issues and help them stay away from plagiarism.
@sayee @inuke @bobinson - Please have a look at this wonderful article.
This is very important information. Useful and will saves many from silly mistakes that could end them in serious trouble.
Thank you for sharing.
Excellent information! Thank you @steemstem for always taking care of these details and making them known!
Good overview of the community standards for using images, that should not only apply for Steemstem.
I just wonder, why you didn't use tags like #creative-commons #public-domain #howto or #guideline instead of #science #technology #engineering and #mathematics ?
Because I'm ignorant... I write and work for SteemSTEM, i habitually limit myself to a few of the same tags lol. No idea you existed until now!
Excellent information about copyright @steemstem. Thanks!.
I draw images for my poems. Question is, can I steal memes or not?