Every once in a blue moon I punch some of my images into the TineEye reverse image search. One image I check is:



Quite some time ago Anfa [correction: it was actually TJ] came across it on a Christian website and passed his discovery along to me. I contacted the Reverend Whoever running the site and asked him to remove it or give me a credit line. He removed it. Good for him.

I ran "Golgotha" through TinEye this evening and was surprised to see more than 60 hits returned. Several are duplicates. Several are from defunct web pages. A fair number are atheist blogs or message boards. The majority are Christian websites.

Maybe it's just me, but I expect better from professing Christians--and atheists. "Thou shalt not steal" is a pillar of the faith (and should be for the faithless), after all. I suspect it is ignorance in most cases. What's really annoying is that some of these people have modified the image.

I was going to send e-mails to some of these abusers, including one in Australia and another in Greece, but the Australian offered only a public comment access, and the translation to Greek proved too time consuming. One site, indulgy.com, makes it painless for schlubs everywhere to upload images. It also makes it a serious pain in the ass to report a copyright violation. In the end I said, "Screw it."

It's probably a case of closing the barn door after the horse has galloped off, but I slapped a watermark on the image and modified the caption.

Has anyone else (besides Anfa) experienced this?





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Yeah, I have no clue why people think it's ok to just use any image in this way. It's not just in Christian circles. It happens anywhere.

I know I've used images that are copyrighted before, back when I was a little less enlightened to how copyrights work. It is very confusing, to be fair to all the people who used your image. Some forms of reuse fall under the Fair Use policy, others do not, and the waters can get kinda muddy.

If one isn't sure, either don't use the image, get permission from the original creator, or at least give credit to the original artist (the latter really only being an option if the reuse falls under the "Faire Use" policy).

I've been there. I've lost count of how many religious/atheist websites are using this image:
http://photoshopcontest.com/view-entry/96262/shedding-light.html

But I'll tell you why you shouldn't feel bad about this...

When we, as artists, set out to create something, we all ask ourselves four questions to measure the success of our work:

1) Is my work memorable and thought-provoking?

2) Will my efforts be recognized, appreciated and enjoyed by my audience?

3) Does this piece make me proud and live up to the standards I set for myself?

4) Can this work be used to promote cheap herbal hair-growth tonic to balding Christian men?


At the end of the day, very few of us can say we've ticked all four of those boxes.

But you can.

If you scroll about halfway down this page http://www.ultimatehairgrower.com/ads-and-promo/ ...

you'll find the culmination of all your hard work - https://i.imgur.com/1pcJWxU.jpg


Congrats!

now that is a difficult goal to strive for and achieve,what's your secret Ted

All good points.

I forgot to mention the tattoo sites! I would laugh my ass off if someone had that tattooed on them.




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I post on disreputable websites, Luis, and hang around with all the wrong people!





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How can you check an image to see if it's been copywrited? Also, how can you find out who created the image?

I received a get well card with this image on it made me feel worse...

I got a third on that image

Apart from the obvious copyright symbol or credit line, there are no easy ways to do either. Your best bet is to assume everything is copyrighted unless it is clearly identified as Public Domain or has a reference to a sharing license.



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