UPDATE Friday, 11/13. The blog owner took the images down [although she has now posted the same copyrighted story of Platero and replaced my images with images from the British Museum which appear to be in accordance with their usage on their website. http://ora25.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/magarusul/] She has now added a quote at the bottom of each of her posts "If you are the owner of this art and object please contact me." Her readers seem to think I'm an ungrateful hussie for not looking at this as PR. One of her readers thought they were being quite funny by calling me a 'donkey' -ha ha- 'ass' since most of the work posted was my donkey art.
This was clearly NOT FAIR USE, as described by the copyright laws. Firstly, she took 16 images [not thumbnails, not crops, full size images]. Many of the images included my donkeys as the main theme, including some from my own children's stories about my donkeys. She then placed them as illustration for a copyrighted book/text of Platero, a story about a donkey [and a lovely story]. This last fact made the infringement even more upsetting for me. As an aspiring author, to have my art used to illustrate another book...um, excuse me, to we all see the conflict. She seemed to think she was 'transforming the art', hence 'fair use.".
There is much confusion among bloggers about copyright. Here is a Blogger's Legal Guide. I thought one more person might understand that just because you put a credit on an image, it does not give you the right to post or use an artist's image without consent or negotiation.Just becasue you have a 'share bottun' on a post, doesn't mean you can take images and illustrate another person's book with them. She obviously doesn't understand, as she continues to post daily a copyrighted book or poem, with art from other people. If someone gave her permission to do this, fine, but ask first.
And what about common curteosy? I always ask people or alert them if I want to post a photo. And for lordi sake, if I posted SIXTEEN of them...which I wouldn't think of, but um, think I'd pretty much ask permission.
Also, this idea that I as an artist should just be thrilled to have anyone post my images to gain more recognition is nonsense. I work very hard to create art for a living, and to create beloved characters from my animals to put in my stories. I don't appreciate having anyone placing my images of my donkeys next to the words of a published book, and I'm sure that author would not be too thrilled either. This person also felt she wasn't doing anything wrong becasue she put a link to my site at he bottom of her post. She cropped out my © insignia that was on the images.Now what happens when 100 others copy the images of her blog.
Thank you to so many that wrote her comments on the blog. You came through for me. Lesson: Don't mess with my donkeys.
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My images are being used without my consent. Feel free to leave a comment on this person's blog post [as I have done].
http://ora25.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/sufletul-cetii/
Here's someone who thinks it's fine and dandy to copy and post a multitude of my images, and then write a story around them. Gr---rrr--r-r-r-.
This is NOT alright. From what I can tell by the Romanian-English translation, he/she [there appears to be no link to send an email directly to this person so I wrote a comment] is either writing a story up, or not sure. This same blog has tons of other's art, from what I can tell, and then writes story narrative around it.
I really get irritated when this happens. It is not ok to just cut and paste people's art, and using it in such an arrogant way. I often give people the permission to use my art, and welcome certain shout outs on the internet, but taking this many of my images, without asking, is not only against the copyright laws, it's arrogant.
Post a comment to them if you'd like. Perhaps that will get this person to learn something.
