Friday, March 4, 2011

Copyright Laws

With all of the new technology that is coming out with imagery and the internet a lot of new questions have been raised and the line of who owns what has become blurred. For example if you put an image up on a public sharing photo site such as Flickr can a major corporation take that image and profit from it or can a person use it for personal use. Is it illegal for someone to use someone else’s image if it is not for profit or is only illegal if they use it for profit? Also if someone puts their image on Flickr or other image sharing website are they releasing their rights to the image? Also there are concerns raised if there are people in the image and the issue of their own personal privacy.
My opinion on the entire matter is that I can see both sides of the issue. As for the person who owned the image I feel like they have certain rights to their images and the uses of it however if they put their images up on public sites such as Flickr they are forfeiting some of their rights to their images.
Also my opinion on the corporation side is that they are simply taking advantage of images that are put on public websites. However I think they are kind of stealing if they don’t compensate the owner of the image especially if they are making a large profit from the image.
One thing I really can only see one side of is when an image of a person is used without their knowledge or consent. This whole conflict brings up the idea of personal privacy. Your image is something that you own and no one should have the rights to use it with your consent.
In the end there are a very fine line when it comes to copyrights and the commercial use of images.