How To Be an Internet Ass

I love to include photos in my posts, and I will often simply do a Google image search for what I'm looking for. If the image is really nice and clearly came from a photographer who is attempting to make a living from his or her photography, I will include a link to the photographer's site at the bottom of the post. This is the standard practice in blogging. If you steal it, at least give credit. It is the expected reciprocal kindness that creates traffic for the site where the picture was found. I frequently find some of my own creations on other sites, and I appreciate the traffic as the other sites include a link to where they found the image.

In this day of Flickr and images readily available to everyone, to expect that you can keep others from looking at or copying your images is to be living in the past, in the era of someone like, I don't know, John McCain, who can't get online without the assistance of his aides.

On a recent post, I searched for "rain" and found a black and white image that really struck me as beautiful. I included the words "picture stolen from" at the bottom of the post, with "from" linked to the photographer's site.

He quickly sent me this note:

Mr. Jetpack,

I noticed your photo on your 7/17/08 of [location deleted to prevent anyone from visiting this guy's site] in the rain looks a little familiar. It came from my website, [URL removed to keep anyone from visiting this guy's site].

I noticed you DID NOT give me any photo credits, failed to contact me for permission and basically hijacked my photo for use without any legal consent.

Please remove it immediately.

"Looks a little familiar." Nice snarky start. And I wonder how Mr. Photographer even knew I had posted his image. Could it be that someone actually visited his site from my site and his analytics told him so? And he went to this blog, saw his image, freaked out and failed to read the post to the bottom where I gave him credit? Hijacked? Legal consent? Give me a break, dude.

I alerted him to the link at the bottom of the post thusly:

[Name removed to keep anyone from visiting this guy's site],

You are mistaken. If you'll notice at the bottom of the original post I included a link to your site, as I generally do when I appreciate a good photo.

If you still don't want people going to your site from my site, I will take down the image and the link.

Let me know.

Thanks

I'm tired of waiting for his reply.

Dude, you've tested my patience. I could understand your incalcitrance intransigence had I been SELLING your photograph for profit, or if I even made money from this blog through advertising. As it was, I was simply providing you free traffic for your nice picture.

Your picture is gone along with the link to your site. I've replaced it with the photo above, shot in the backyard about five minutes ago. Your comments to my blog and their associated links have also been removed.

You have a lot to learn about the Internet.