In the past few months, more than one friend of mine (and yours) saw his or her kitty photo appear here and there from other accounts. This is very upsetting because we love our cats and nobody likes to see his or her pics posted by other accounts as if it were his or her own. Deeply hurtful. How can we define such a thing? How can we define this behaviour? There is an uncomfortable (rude, but correct) word for this:
STOLEN==**Phototheft**
Do we like this behaviour? Of course not!
(disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but i read a lot about the topic and talked
with several lawyers about our topic here. Links at the end of blogpost)
Sometimes, Phototheft happens because a Twitter user (a new one, he/she maybe there for first time on Twitter) doesn’t know (or hasn’t read even) Twitter and copyright rules (I must admit, rules are sometimes very long to be read and complicated, etc. …).
Regardless, rules **ARE** important and **ARE** valid for everybody.
New Twitter users (we’ll call them TweetyCats) are often insecure as to how to manage tweets, RTs and FAVs. For a good and accurate start, I wish to propose the following. It’s meant as helpful!
**First:**
If you love a photo, simply use the RT (Retweet) button to share it with your friends.
Every friend who follows you will be happy to see your photo ReTweeted.
Twitter is about sharing and that is the easiest way.
Using the RT button, you do nothing wrong.
**Second:**
You can also use Fav (Favourite) button to indicate that you like a photo,
but that doesn’t help sharing the tweet among your friends.
**Third:**
**DO NOT USE** photo/photos from other Tweetycat/Tweetycats and send it as your own!
Some people download pics they like and then send them again as their own pics.
This is an extremely rude behaviour (and may have Twitter and legal consequences).
Every photo you did not take/shoot by yourself has a copyright owner (you accepted the rules,
when you created your Twitter account, this must not be forgotten, never!).
Your account can be banned or permanently suspended.
If someone has money, time and a lawyer, you can also be sued for copyright infringement.
You can easily understand that this is less than a good thing.
You can eventually use a “not your” photo, but you need written permission from the photo owner,
which allows you to use the photo you like.
There are some license types you should know:
Public Domain: Photo can be used free
Creative Common license : you can use, BUT are required to credit the photographer.
Erasing or cropping (c) signs is very bad and extremely unfair, and is an criminal act in most countries we are aware of.
Similarly, if you add your own watermark to copyrighted photos without permission, it’s theft.
**Fourth:**
If you take your own photos of your cats, it is good advice to place a watermark with copyright sign on them before posting them on Twitter.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop #Photothief s from copying your #photos but they can be identified more easily.
Depending on the platform (smartphone, tablet, PC/Mac) you are using,
there are several options to watermark your photos:
For iPhone/iPad it can be used an app called MarkSta.
To create a simple (c) watermark takes a few seconds. Add them to your photos before you publish/tweet them.
You can also save copyright watermark as templates for future use.
For Android:
PC has several options:
a free program you can use for watermark would be Irfanview
it has a lot of photo editing features, for waterk mark usage google
“irfanview watermark” to find links, I even found some youtube links explaining it.
PC and Mac I use Adobe Lightroom 5 (really love this software !).
You can create easy templates for watermarking when you are going to shoot photos for twitter/web use.
Ressources/Links :
Twitter Copyright and DMCA policy
https://support.twitter.com/entries/15795
Twitter Fair use
https://support.twitter.com/articles/20171959-fair-use
Can I Use that Picture? The Terms, Laws, and Ethics for Using Copyrighted Images
http://thevisualcommunicationguy.com/2014/07/14/can-i-use-that-picture/
nice decision flowchart ..
for beginners: check upper left edge first!
Hugo Storify:
“the RT button is your friend”
best practice .. work in progress, will come soon.
Since a blogpost is never finished complete, i will hit publish button now,
but maybe i will add some minor updates and links later.
Your HugoDad
ps:
if u kept reading til here, finally a cat #photie:
my loved Houston cat shot at our animal shelter here..
He found a #foreverhome long ago!
version: 1.0
Hugo and his Friends 