Is that my image on your blog?!

Well its a new year and my first post of the year.

Unfortunately, this is not a fun post for me. I have created a new linked image and put it in my side bar. Over the last 2 weeks I have been on a lot of different blogs and seen so many creative beautiful places here on the internet. Each person spends hours of time creating a spot that is unique and reflective of their own personality. I know that, I too, have spent many, many hours (my husband will attest to this) creating scrap-blog pages that I use for images. I spend a lot of time on my photos, setting them up and editing them. It is not only an investment of my own creative resources but also my personal finances.

Keeping this in mind, you can imagine how shocked I was when I came across a blog that had copied and pasted one of my images and was using it on her sidebar without asking me or even linking back to my blog. I am going to assume that this person simply is new to blogging and does not realize that any image created on any blog is copyrighted to that blog owner. I'll also assume that she did not see my copyright statement at the bottom of my blog. That is why I am putting the image above at the top of my sidebar.

The law is very clear. It is considered private, intellectual property. This has happened to me once before, but I didn't say anything because I was intimidated. But this time I decided that I just could not let it go. The funny thing is that if she would have asked, I know that I would have been very flattered and would have said "Sure, just link back to me."

So, I will spell out the proper blog etiquette here in no uncertain terms. If you would like to use an image on a blog, simply ask the blog owner. IF the owner says its okay, use the image and create a link back to the blog that you took it from. Also, it is best to give written credit on your blog somewhere for where you got the image. This is simply common courtesy. If you use an idea (i.e. recipe or craft idea) from someone's blog, simply let them know, give them credit on your post and provide a link back to their site and origianl post.

Having gotten that out of my system let me say we're all on the honor system here in blog land. I also want to say I really love and treasure all the interaction and every comment that I receive. I love blogging and hope that this post is read with the intent that it was written.

Happy New Year Everyone!