I am not intending to call anyone out and this was not written as some passive-aggressive attack on anyone. However, I think that as a Steemit community, we should all be working hard to make sure that we are properly crediting other people's images when we put them up on our posts. Due to posts being un-editable after 7 days and the fact that you can make money from your Steemit posts, I think that it is more important to properly credit the owner of images on Steemit that on a small personal blog.
For example, I have a little WordPress blog about D&D. I don't make any money on it and I am not always the best about crediting images I found online for it. However, if a rights holder complains, I can remove it instantly. Not so on Steemit!
Here on Steemit, I do not think there is a way to delete a photo, if it was not allowed to be used for commercial use (after seven days). So what would happen if someone's photo was used without permission and they complained? Could the author of the post be sued? Could Steemit be sued?
I am no lawyer, so in order to prevent any legal challenges, we should all use appropriate pictures and cite them properly. Below, I will go over my process. If it could be improved, or I am wrong, please let me know in the comments!
I do one of two things:
ONE: I take the picture myself. I agree to not be angry with myself for using my own pictures on my own post. However, I am not good at taking pictures. Even selfies are a struggle.
Yes, I am wearing a luchadore mask. It makes me 337% more handsome in every picture I take.
TWO: Use the Creative Commons to find pictures that I am allowed to use for commercial purposes. It is really easy to go and search for pictures to use at that website.
I generally go with number two.
In order to cite the picture correctly, I use the following template:
You can remove the asterisks if you want. I like the italicized look.
For the picture at the top of the post, here is what the markdown code looks like:
I hope this was helpful! Keep making great content and make sure to properly credit the pictures that other people make!
Picture Credit For The Photo At The Top Of This Post: "Do I Need to Cite This?" by tengrrl is licensed under CC by 2.0
Everything else, I took myself, either via my phone or screenshots from my PC
Good post. The images accompanying my posts are collages assembled out of source content scraped from Pixabay. Despite that, I plan on taking @jd-alden 's advice and hosting them elsewhere.
There's also a third way: using royalty-free images. I scrape most of my photos from sites like Pixabay and Pexels. Free for commercial use, no attribution required.
I will check those sites out.
Do they have a good selection of pictures?
I am well acquainted with the pitfalls of image usage online, but my brain hadn't connected this with the fact that there's an irrevocability to things here. That could get messy really quickly, eh?
That is what I am afraid of. Hopefully, we can all work to prevent the messiness.
The image itself isn't stored as part of the blockchain; the blockchain just stores a reference link to the image. Still, if you're uploading images directly into the posts those images are stored on a server users have no control over after the editing period is over. That could be a problem.
However, there's no reason you can't store the images you use on your own server or with an image hosting service like Imgur. If there's an issue with an image down the line---perhaps because someone claimed an image was available under a license that the actual creator had not granted, or if the creator is disputing your use of their IP under what you consider fair use---you can delete the image at will. Some services, and definitely your own server, will allow you to change the image file at the immutable referenced location to something else after the post editing period is over instead of just deleting the image outright.
A very important post. Excellent advice here; you wouldn't want to get sued, especially since money can be made here.