hdrider wrote: ↑Fri Dec 27, 2019 4:21 pm Not that I condone stealing people's images for commercial use or to pass off as your own, but you have to realize that if you are putting them on the internet other people will have access to them. While I agree with keeping the images viewable to members only that will not keep someone from joining just to get the images. I will cross-post a suggestion to the rules that the ownership of any images is that of the poster or site and the use of any images on this site without express written permission is not allowed and reason for punishment including immediate banning.

You have stumbled in a gray area there.
There is a "Fair Use Doctrine" that allows for public use in many circumstances. So before someone gets their Member status axed, the rules of the forum should have no gray area like the copyright laws do, that means "0" tolerance for posting any art/photos that they did not produce, purchase or own. I whole heartedly do not agree with this!

I think that would lead to unnecessary time and effort to prove if photo/art are owned by the poster.

I have over 70,000 photos on Flickr and many are posted on various websites. I understand that some of these photos are out there without my knowledge.

I have no plans to make it any different than it is now. I/we can't stop people from snagging photos, most of them will end up on Goggle images and it's just as easy to grab it there. Using other peoples images isn't always a bad thing, I use them sometimes if I'm trying to explain something and don't have photos.

The best thing you can do is put a watermark on it.

SQWIB wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 9:51 am You have stumbled in a gray area there.
There is a "Fair Use Doctrine" that allows for public use in many circumstances.

I agree that it may be a gray area but fair use only applies to copyrighted material. I doubt most of the images here will be copyrighted. I was just pointing out that if you put them here they can and may very well get "stolen".

Found this scorpion on the wall where I'm working.
I shined a bright LED light in it and it took off to a dark place.
The day is cloudy and no sunshine.
Direct sunlight will kill a scorpion.
It did not like that light.