Christian Thieves

Written By: Timothy Fish Published: 12/10/2007

Okay, here is a hint for bloggers. If you find an image on the web, such as on a stock photography sight like FotoSearch or Comstock Images, and it has a watermark that says “COPYRIGHT” in big bold letters, they really don’t intend for you to use it on your blog. If you want to use one of these images, the proper thing to do is to pay them and they will be happy to allow you to use an image that doesn’t have the watermark on it. Actually, no matter where you find an image on the web, you shouldn’t be using it to decorate your blog without the copyright owner’s permission.

Is that hard to understand? Let’s say it another way. If you didn’t take the picture, if you haven’t asked for permission, if the photo isn’t owned by the US government, if you don’t have a written license agreement, you shouldn’t be using it on your blog, website or anywhere else. To do so is stealing.

A few mistakes are one thing. In some cases, the use of photos may be fine, since using them is benefiting the copyright owner. Most publishers and authors, for example, appreciate people displaying images that promote the author or a book, but other types uses are completely unacceptable. It seems like many blogger not getting it through their heads, and they don’t even care. Even worse, many of the people who are using copyrighted images without permission claim to be Christians. What kind of example are we showing to the lost world if we don’t at least try to practice what we preach? Then to make it even worse, Christian writers are among the ones who are doing this. If anyone understands the importance of fairly compensating people for the use of their intellectual property, Christian authors should and yet the message many are giving the world is that we don’t care about treating others fairly. It ought not to be this way.