Image theft is piracy too

jimbo45 said:

Once a Pic is uploaded to the web without any "disclaimers" then generally it can be treated as Public Domain - so long as these images aren't used for commercial products or sold.

Again, that's not true. The image is protected by international copyright laws. The internet is not "public property." That's a very common misconception. I've had to study up on this very thing, because I was involved with a site that offered graphics for public use, and also sold graphics. Needless to say, there was some pretty sticky situations that arose from that scenario.

stillfreefilms said:

if you dont want your images being used dont post them on the web or watermark the picture in clear see through writing or logo. thats just my view but most people that post images dont mind you using them.

That's like saying "If you don't want your software hacked, then don't provide download links." Honestly, I would rather not argue about this issue, but if you think about it, what's so different between software, and images? Nothing really.

Youtube's attitude to video clips is a bit confusing. I often embed youtube clips in Google Wave or in the "what are you listening to" thread on SF.
Sometimes you cannot watch the embedded version and have to go to the youtube page other times you don't.

Understandable on this forum perhaps but Google own both youtube and Wave

CarlTR6 said:

I will freely download images unless the website declares the images to be property of the website and requires permission to down load them. If an image is labeled as copyrighted, I won't download it either.

All websites are copyrighted, even those without a copyright symbol on them. So technically, that's stealing, and breaking copyright law. I'm not just making this up. You can easily do a search on copyright laws for images. And by the way, I don't care if people right click and save images, then use them on the net. I'm just informing people that it is indeed copyright infringement. It's not like I've never done it. Of course I have.

z3r010 said:

It's too hard to police images, so if somebody complains their image is being used without their permission, we remove them.

But if I put a link up to some pirated software you'd remove it immediately (and ban me) I suspect, regardless of whether the copyright holder contacted you or no.

It's very easy to tell if software is pirate, how the hell do you expect me to check images?