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Sunday 2 February 2014

Copyright

There's a new round of interesting challenges flooding Facebook at the moment.  It involves sharing an artist's name and the recipient (or liker of your post) has to find a work on Google by that artist and put it up on facebook and the first person who likes that artwork, receives another artist's name to continue the game. I guess its kind of like a chain letter.
I like lots of different art, so was tempted to join in, and then realised the difficulty in getting permission to use the images so pulled out.  What a plonker they probably think I am.  But it really is a dilemma.  How can I go round espousing the responsibilities of digital citizens if I don't play by the same rules?
The images on facebook are sometimes directly from the artist and usually require specific permission.  Sometimes they have been copied - and then who owns the rights?  Is it the original artist who may or may not have given permission or is it the copier who may have used it and adjusted it in some way?
And then there is the issue of all the shared jokes and stories.  Are we allowed to share them?  What a can of worms!
Creative Commons, I hear you all saying.  But these copyright-free or otherwise images do not often contain the very art that you desire.  I also need to learn a lot more about how long after death copyright is still an issue.
A hint that I can give about searching for suitable images: Make sure you search images using google Search Tools that give you appropriate permissions.
And when you find an image that suits you, check again on the image details, by visiting the page the image is sourced from.  You may find that all rights are reserved, like in this one.
It is not as straight forward as you would hope.  Dammit!

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