When I started this blog in 2005 for two or three of you, I couldn’t have cared less where I got my accompanying pictures. I’d just search on Google, grab something appropriate and insert it in my blog post, copyright be damned. Also, you were lucky if I posted something three or four times a month. Juvenile, uncultivated crap like, “Oh I went shopping today. It was fun. The End.”
In 2008, when my readership soared to an audience of five or six, I figured I should think twice about plagarizing and only put up my own photos or get them from the public domain.
A few months ago, when I revamped my blog, I created the banner above from a picture that I stole found on the internet. It was from a website that was semi-public domain. The author’s name was listed as A Aevtrd, or some such nonsense with a bunch of umlauts and Norwegian-looking bits dangling over the letters like left-over mouse droppings. The site said I could use the pictures for my blog and edit them as long as I didn’t make money off it. And I had to attribute the author and follow his rules. Well this goat picture didn’t have any rules.
Or so I thought.
Meanwhile, my readship continued to grow and I grew to LOVE the banner. LOVE it. I wanted to marry it.
Anyway, the other day, I went back to the original site where I found my little goats and this time I noticed a link for the author’s Flickr account. Uh oh. And he wasn’t Norwegian. He was American. With an American (well, Irish, if you want to put too fine a point on it) name and everything.
Oh my God! What do I do? “Oh, sorry sir, for destroying your picture for my purposes for the last few months but is it OK that I used your picture and continue to do so?” What if, after receiving my sorry-ass plea, he went to my blog and was mortified at the desecration of his art? And I hadn’t asked permission! What if he pressed charges? What if he – GASP! – had me arrested and sent to (OH NO!) Blogger jail!
Have you ever been to Blogger jail? Oh My God, it’s absolutely horrifying! First, the Blog Police come to your house in the middle of the night and rip you out of the arms of your loved ones. They strip search your hard drive and confiscate your IP address. They slap handcuffs on you and throw you in the Blog police car and threaten your domain name as they speed down the information super highway to the station.
The next thing you know you’re sharing a cell with a bald-headed thug named TurdBot108 who’s in for Googling Weenie Man song lyrics. And he hogs all the toilet paper. I’d be forced to eat porridge and fold standard issue laundry with my fellow prisoners: web stats whores and content thieves.
I agonized over whether or not to contact this guy. Maybe he would never find out. But if he did, and not from me, I could be put away for life! I resigned myself to doing the right thing and sent the photographer an email begging for forgiveness, offering my first born child, anything. I HAD to have my goat banner. Nanny Goats In Panties just isn’t Nanny Goats In Panties without it.
As I clicked SEND at 12:30am, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep all night, wondering if, when, and how he would answer. I imagined a vitriolic response, hurling spam and threatening to expose my HTML. He would flame my ass and the goat I rode in on. He would tear down my firewall, leaving behind a pitiful pile of rubble.
I sobbed. I prayed to the internet gods. “Please!” I cried. “Have mercy on a smalltime blogger like me! I’m nothing! Oh, boo hoo!”
Five minutes later I got a response: “Sure,” he said. “No problem.”
Woo Hoo!
I would like to kiss the feet (proverbially, of course) of Kevin Collins for betstowing his kindness and downright upstandingness unto Nanny Goats. He is a wonderful photographer – you can catch his stuff on his Flickr page here.
TRIVIA QUESTION: Without cheating, can you guess where the Nanny Goats In Panties banner picture was taken? I’ll let you know the answer in the next blog post.
* * * WHAT ELSE? * * *
Nanny Goats In Panties is now listed on Alltop.com under the Humor and Midlife categories. They “help you explore your passions by collecting stories from ‘all the top’ sites on the web.”
NGIP would like to profusely thank the following fellow bloggers for adding Nanny Goats In Panties to their blogroll:
Olga The Traveling Bra – keeping the world abreast of all her traveling adventures.
Feisty Charlie – A shit-kickin’ writer from Texas whose birthday falls two days before mine. Yesterday was her birthday, it’s not too late to send her good wishes!
Los Cuatro Ojos – where some days you’re the dog and some days you’re the hydrant.
Musings – A lovely young couple from Paso Robles, California – hey, my great (or is it great-great?) grandmother is buried at the Old Adobe Chruch in Paso Robles!
Honeywine – A ghetto-trailer (her words, not mine) woman working on her PhD. I should apologize to Anna right now for all references I have made and will undoubtedly continue to make about trailer trash.
Laughing Wolf – Author Dave “holds the distinction of looking like Uncle Fester (or a shaved Panda)”. Dave also had a birthday this week, so go throw some cake at him too.
Oops, I guess I should go back and make sure I didn’t ‘steal’ any pictures. Wouldn’t want to go to blog jail.
I see those goats all the time, given I live in the Bay Area. Well, probably not those SPECIFIC goats given there really are hundreds of them.
I cheated and read the above post before this one so I know where it was taken.
Also – I am guessing Ireland.
blog jail?
I can’t take whatever image I want off the internet and put them on my blog?
and Kevin’s comment above went so far above my head, I’m hoping there’s enough oxygen for him to survive.
I’m leaving to go read my people magazine.
Jan said: “And for gawd’s sake, don’t just hotlink to the image; grab it off the net and host it yourself. If you hotlink to a graphic, the more traffic YOU get, the more you overload THEIR server.”
Web servers don’t get overloaded that easily unless a linked image element is on Digg or Slashdot. :^) Though if someone pays by bandwidth, that’s something to consider. As someone who runs my own physical web server, it’s more of an annoyance when you see images being pulled. :^
When it comes to Flickr images, you can use the one hosted there, but provide a link to the photopage you found it on a) when you know you have permission to use it or b) the license gives you that permission. I’m the photographer of this image, and many of my images are Creative Commons licensed, and this is fair game with attribution. In this case, the banner was “remixed” (a transformative use), and the CC license I used allowed the remix. :^) I encourage you all to visit creativecommons.org to see how you can find all sorts of wonderful work (not just photographic) that you can use without royalties by giving attribution to the creator. (There are many types of CC licenses that allow different uses and have different attribution requirements.) Flickr also has an advanced search that allows to you only search CC stuff, and all Flickr photopages have the license that is used by the creator- always read the license terms. If you find something elsewhere that has no reference or license information and it’s not obvious you can contact it’s creator for permission, assume it is All Rights Reserved (especially if you think the place where you found it didn’t have that right), and keep looking- you’ll easily find something you can use that allows it if you look at Creative Commons content sites, and you’ll often something you’ll like better than just random Google searches. (PS- The site it was found on had on file an old user name with a Cyrillic character that they don’t support on their site, which is why it looked all fUnKy and unreadable, Margaret.) Just to recap- always look for and respect license information, and everyone is happy!
:^)
The landscape looks like parts of Montana and Wyoming…where I grew up. Could be Colorado though.
Whew! Glad you got your goat approval. I’ve stopped using Google images since I had a hissy fit once about someone taking my material (my words, not pictures, but still). I use http://www.morguefile.com/ and http://www.sxc.hu/, where you can use photos without restriction. Live on, goaties!
I’ve always enjoyed your writing. : )
Hey Margaret,
Congratulations. Three years is long time. My net connection is pretty slow today so while I was waiting for the comment box to appear in one window, I read so many of your posts that you wrote in 2005. You have grown beautifully as a writer, and well that’s quite a motivation for me.:-P Btw how do you know that they serve porridge at the Blogger Jail and that you have to fold the laundry?
I’m glad he OK’ed it for you. I’ve been biting my fingernails myself waiting for an OK from a publisher for use of a picture. And I love the goat header also!
i have taken images from google images as well…now you’ve scared me! blogger jail…yikes! i don’t look good in an orange jumpsuit!
So glad you aren’t going to be sued 🙂 I like the goats … and have gotten used to them.
All fine blogs you list there … of course I’ve known Olga since I logged on a year ago … and I’ve be stalking … I mean following her ever since. She’s coming to visit me in September Yay!
It’s funny how you grow as a blogger. I was a google images whore when I started out, now I wouldn’t even think of it.
Way to be the bigger person!
I’ve been reasonably careful about my pics. A couple of posts have had pictures found online, but most of its my own bad photography.
And hang on here just darned minute, I LIVE in a ghetto trailer. I myself am divinely sophisticated. I think my possum trapping abilities clearly point that out! 😉
Jinksy: You should totally sue everyone for using “Extremely Funny”. And I’m going to copyright the word “the”. I’ll be rich,… RICH!
Glad to hear you didn’t get sued for goat-infringement.
On the opposite end of things, it makes me think that I should trademark and copyright the term “extremely funny” and sue everyone that come up in Google.
What do you think?
It’s someplace hilly with lots of goats?
Hey, no one else took a stab at it.
You’re going to find that the vast majority of the time, photographers and graphic artists are just fine with an individual using their work. Just do them a favor and give them a mention and a little link-love when you do.
And for gawd’s sake, don’t just hotlink to the image; grab it off the net and host it yourself. If you hotlink to a graphic, the more traffic YOU get, the more you overload THEIR server.
Bad internet etiquette. Baaaaaad.
*climbing down from soapbox*
I’ve had my say. Carry on.
Very cool. I’m glad he said yes – I love your banner!
I haven’t laughed this hard in a very long time. The blog police? Priceless!
Uh-oh. ‘scuse me while I go write a few emails to some photographers…..
And I don’t think this is right, but those hills look an awful lot like my blog-mistresses old stomping grounds in Sonoma County….
Very funny post Ms. NannyPants! 🙂
I’ve been to blogger jail, except I was in the cell with ‘Long_Dong_Silverman29’
Was that the Kevin Collins who used to be a linesman in the NHL? If so that explains it. That particular Kevin Collins was well known as a pacifist. Always breakin’ up a good fight.
hahah.
i actually do this for a living. buy and permission photos for us to use. i’ve found that most of the photographers on flickr are really friendly and like to have their material used.
How do you know that “Sure, no problem” doesn’t simply mean that he’s already got an attorney on retainer?
OMG. That is funny. I just stumbled some articles about photo using and crediting (coincidentally) this morning that you might want to check out–hahaha.
I have been known to be on the edge of blog jail for handing out too many of those awards…you know the ones where you are only supposed to pass on to 3 or 5 and I, *gasp* hand out more. I know. It will be a life term.
NOW I am blushing and all gooey inside and it is not even 8 AM….
I LOVE your blog! I also think I might have a little crush developing….
Happy Birthday Sexy Blogger Babe! You will have a tribute on my blog later today, at the moment I am out the door! BUT watch for it!
I love that banner and the good-hearted people like Kevin all over the internet. Not that I have bothered with a banner…..
Since I “meself” come from Irish decent I would expect nothing less than generosity from someone named Collins….perhaps thats where he took the photo?
I thought Sweetney was captain of the blog police? And Google Images aren’t considered public domain? I guess I’m in a shitload of trouble! I’ve got one coming up this week …
Haven’t gotten back to Stumble yet. Because I am having 3 conversations w/you at once right now. As usual.
Happy Birthday 🙂
From a shaved panda fester’alike englishmen living in Germany.
Hope you have a great one 😀