Hey everyone,

I was not sure where to post this, so I hope that the "General" space works okay.

Does anyone know if it is (for lack of a better term) "not okay" to have pictures that I have downloaded off various websites on my publicly available "Yahoo Pictures" site. What I mean is, is it any kind of copyright infringement or anything. I have almost a thousand current military and Operation Iraqi Freedom pictures stored on my computers, and have a few of them that I thought might be useful to others on my Yahoo site. Do you think that it is okay?

Hopefully someone can put me on the straight and narrow!

Thanks in advance,
Chris

I think you are OK unless you try to sell them. Just to be safe if you should put a note on each one saying where you got it.

I think that it actually depends on the laws of the country whre the site is hosted, so I suggest to get aware of the existing regulations. In Italy for instance the rules are very strict and you can only publish the pics who are public domain or the ones of which you can demonstrate to have the publishing rights...
When I use to own a Financial Info Web site, I had some advice from attorneys that set up a series of disclaimers about the matter, and I'm using some of those on my hobby site at present. If you're interested in drop me a line and I'll check if I have them available in English too...
Ciao

I see alot of sites with a disclaimer, which says that the fotos are for reference only and non-profit related hobbies. If somebody who owns the copyright to any of the photos wants them removed, its only a matter of contacting you and they will be removed immediately.

It is a good idea though when you save pictures to credit the source where you found them though, at least then they they get the credit for their work. I dont think major companies or newspapers will try to sue over a copyright issue.... you will probably get a letter of warning or something, but its not small fish like you that they are out after...... its more likely to stop other media using their work. At the end of the day.... why sue?..... you cant take feathers of a frog!