http://spajde.targeteil.org:80/?q=node/73

In my Course Portal I've been "borrowing" images off other sites to illustrate the units in my online adaptations of textbooks. I have policy statements posted on the portal homepage and all "offending" course homepages (Off-site Images , Online Adaptations).

If the authors or publishers of the textbooks whose work I've been adapting chose to come after me about reproducing any or all of their content, I might be in trouble. At the least, I'd probably have to delete a lot of typing in the form of Moodle lessons. As the respective policy statement explains, use of the adaptations is contingent on purchase of the original material. The adaptations exist to save time marking. The lessons automatically mark and tally the exercises. Students get instant feedback on their work and I don't have to check work that is designed for binary assessment. This means that interactive time can be spent on productive rather than procedural interaction.

The guiding principles with images are acknowledgement and tidiness. If I borrow something from somewhere else, I wish to say so; however, I do not wish to clutter my pages with references to sources. My current trick is to draw images straight from their sources, so that their urls in the properties window can serve as citations. This may not satisfy some sources. Indeed, some sources object to any display of images stored in their webposition in webpoints other than their own. Some even automate their objections. For example, today I borrowed a nifty CHiPs photo from adequate.com. Within about an hour of the offense, the image in my course portal was replaced by a notice explaining that adequate.com does not allow its images to be drawn by other sites and that the violation had been logged.

I found this amusing, since a) adequate.com is not likely the owner of the image in question and b) adequate.com allows outright downloading of the images it stores. Of course, for the plaintiff the issue may not be ownership, but storage. You can use the image, but you must make your own copy and store it in your own webspace instead of leaching off of us. Off-site display probably increases server load. The stated alternative is to link to adequate.com's pages, thereby using the server for its intended purpose: display of the image host's pages. I don't know much about this issue and would appreciate illumination.

What I really wish to address is the question of private property and community use of it. Certainly if I post something of my own creation on the Web, I expect my rights as its owner and creator to be respected right down the line. However, by posting on the Web, I am making my property available for reproduction and display elsewhere. As long as I am acknowledged as creator and owner of the object, and the use made of the object does not offend me as its creator and owner, I have no objection to its display or reproduction.

It really comes down to theft and dissemination. In the context of the Web, digital objects cannot normally be stolen in the sense of being removed from their owners. They can only be stolen in the sense of being claimed as property by someone other than their owners. If someone other than the owner of a digital object provides an additional point of display without claiming ownership (but, one would hope, tossing in some sort of acknowledgement of the source, preferably hyperlinked to the owner's webspace), no theft has occurred. Instead, the object has been disseminated. When it comes to dissemination, digital objects are no safer than ideas. Once available, they will be passed around by individuals and groups other than their creators and owners.