Imagine

Part 1 in the article series: Copyright Infringement on the Internet

By Linda Matthews

Have you ever downloaded or copied an image from the internet?
Yes of course you have, they’re just everywhere and they’re just so pretty.

Have you ever downloaded or copied an article from the internet?
Again, I’m sure you have. Other people simply have such interesting stories to tell.

Did you bother to read the copyright notice before you downloaded or copied the image or article from that website?
I’m going to guess your answer would be – “probably not” or “occasionally” or “I don’t have time to read everything on the internet”.

The recent surge of personal blogs, social websites, and photo sharing websites such as Flickr; have more people than ever are taking to the internet to “show and tell“. On the surface this seems like a wonderful opportunity to connect and share with people who have common interests, but on the flip side it has opened up a whole new world of opportunity for you to become a victim of copyright infringement.

Photo courtesy MorgueFile.com

Imagine this . . .
You are walking down the street, maybe doing some window shopping. It’s a beautiful day; the sun is warm on your face; colors are vibrant; the breeze is cool. Everyone you pass has a smile on their face. You are very peaceful and calm and relaxed.

Then suddenly someone whizzes past you, grabs your purse or snatches your wallet and takes off down the street. You are suddenly confused and it takes a second or two to register what’s happened but by then all you can do is stare helplessly as the thief runs at full speed away from you with your possessions grasped tightly in his hand.

You feel violated and helpless. You could chase him or you could stand there and scream about it, but either way, the results will be futile. The culprit has already disappeared, taking with him your hard earned dollars, credit cards and other personal items.

Stop for a moment and consider how you would feel in this scenario.

If you have ever published something to the internet such as an image, an article or a downloadable file, and have just discovered that someone has used this content without your permission, then you will easily recognize this feeling. This is what it feels like to have your copyright violated.

Just because it’s tiny
For most of us, “copyright” is a tiny little word that’s printed on the second of third page of a book, or located in tiny little print at the bottom of most every website and blog on the internet and is seen so often and is now so commonplace that most of us don’t even see the word at all.

Photo courtesy MorgueFile.com

But don’t let that tiny little word fool you, copyright is in fact a big huge and sometimes scary monster of a word. Just because it doesn’t demand to be noticed, does not mean that it should be ignored. In fact, it’s probably the most misunderstood word on the web at the moment; innocently violated by those who don’t understand its implications, or worse, blatantly violated by those who do understand but choose to ignore its implications.

Copyright on the internet
The internet has become a wonderful playground of opportunity, visual excitement and social interactivity. It brings the whole wide world right onto our desktop in an instant.

For quilters and crafters particularly, this is exciting – we can quickly learn a new technique by taking an online class; we can see what other quilters are working on by viewing their photos located on Flickr or their blog; and we can download a quilting pattern in an instant.

We can also “right click and save” just about anything on the internet.

But just because it is so easy to download articles information and images, and save them to our desktop, does that make it right to do so?

Resources

Quilting Copyright & Quilters Links

Tomorrow: Part 2 in the article series: Please Don’t Steal My Copyright, it’s Naughty

Copyright notice for this article

You are welcome to reprint this article in full or as a series, providing that no changes are made to it, and that this copyright notice and my signature (About the author) remain intact. If you are posting this article to a blog or the website, you must leave the live links intact. If you’re still not sure about it please contact me.