On one of my post, i was talking about knock-off and fake products on eBay, I mention about the images being stolen and reused somewhere else to promote these fakes. Therefore many (more) professional sellers now put some kind of ‘stamp’ or ‘watermarks’ on their pictures to avoid these pictures being stolen and misused by third-party.
Image theft are now everywhere…beware if you like to use online shopping sites like eBay because many of images shown on eBay are not the actual image of the product. We, as consumers, need to know the authenticity of the product we are buying so we are not being fooled. And the honest sellers also don’t want their pictures stolen and misused by other irresponsible sellers.
So,basically…..Online theft is everywhere!not only on online shopping websites, somebody can also steal idea from our blogpost/images from our blog which can really make us, bloggers, disappointed.
a fellow blogger from a blog that I enjoy reading once commented on his own blog: “I don’t ask for money, but please, acknowledge the source if you cite any of my post,” (his blog is about his life in Japan, and he often writes about tips/fun fact about living in Japan and Japanese culture, and because his blog is really good, many of his post were posted on some forum without him being acknowledged, his blog not being referred even once), you can see his blog here, but his blog is using Indonesian, so I apologise for non-Indonesian speakers.
yes, for some of us, internet users, acknowledgement of our intellectual property, of something we write, is kinda important. Unfortunately, for others, it’s not even worth a penny so they don’t think that it’s actually important to write the source. Surely, the blogger I mentioned above, he’s not looking for money, I’m sure he won’t be mad that his post being replicated and posted in an online forum, as long as his blog is mentioned in the forum.
This is one of the examples of Creative Commons.
OK, I need to explain some basic things about creative commons to share this important knowledge to readers/other bloggers.
So basically, creative commons is some kind of copyright, but it’s more simple and nicer. By setting up a creative commons, a user give a permission for other people to re-use their intellectual property (usually under the condition that it’s for non-commercial use).
Before becoming a blogger, I didn’t really pay attention about creative commons, intellectual property, copyright or any thing similar. For me, this matter was kinda vague, especially the things you put on internet. To put it simple, the old me (before being a blogger, and know more about this matter) thought that it’s the risk of putting something online. You cannot really track when people use and grab your material and publish it somewhere else. So I always thought that “you know what the risk is by putting your work online, it will be easily stolen, and if you still prefer to put it online, you are just one step away of being stolen.”
But after starting my blog (and knowing how hard it is to come up with idea of what to write without plagiarizing other people’s work), I totally changed my mind. As I said before, writing something clever and post it on blog is not easy…and knowing somebody else just steal it, copy and paste it somewhere else is just devastating.
Here is what I am thinking now: “why do people have no respect of other people’s works. Mentioning the source is not a difficult thing to do, really, you just need to put the link of the source, so people who are reading will be able to find the source and by that, you have given thank to the one who create it. as simple as that! Why do people like to take credit of thing they don’t own? Or they are just simply ignorant?”
while I’m typing this, I am actually ashamed of myself
I am was am was(uh whatever) a pirate!
I admit, I didn’t really pay more respect on intellectual property before. Especially on things I found via google (mainly images), I rarely checked about its creative commons or copyrights( well, I should say that I didn’t really understand about creative commons until I studied Net Communications this semester), and I just assumed that if I can save the file, it’s ok to save, copy and paste it into somewhere else. I then realized that most of those images I found online using Google are actually ‘subject to copyright’ (when you click image you found on google, this ‘Image may be subject to copyright.’ also appears below the image) when I browsed image for my header weeks ago. I just realized that these images are actually being sold, they are not there for free, you need to purchase the license to use it online, for example is the cartoon images from cartoonstock, when you reuse it and post the image into your blog (even if your blog is noncommercial blog), you need to buy the license, from as low as $10 per year.
Of course not all of these things need to be purchased, but still, copyrighted files are everywhere online…sometimes we just don’t pay attention, and easily reproduce it. At least, it will be nice if you mention the source, respect the true owner of that idea.
And therefore, for this blog, I put a tiny creative commons symbol (but not sure the readers will notice/ know what the meaning of that symbol). You can also make your own HERE.
As Marc Garcelon (2009: 292) explains, the CC logo basically means: I am okay if you want to use some material of this blog as long as it’s for noncommercial use. (oh and by the way, I am also aware, that some items or ideas featured on my blog may also subject to copyright and I try my best to acknowledge the source (hence, no copyright infringement intended!). and here’s the real description from creativecommons.org:
You are free:
- to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- to Remix — to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
so please, if you use any of my blogpost from this blog, acknowledge my blog. And not only my blog, everything you re-use/re-post/copy-paste from online source, please…oh please, acknowledge the source (but don’t…please don’t…cite wikipedia on your essay, it’s an open source and not all the information there is reliable. so if you do thta, there’s a chance that you will fail miserably 
)
and lastly, some tips!
here I found some useful websites that explain how to prevent image theft or other intellectual property online:
Khulsey.com
Netmechanic.com
i desperately need some comments…
JUST JOKING…
but, well…let’s start thinking about commenting on blog…how sad is it to find many interesting blogs without any comment from the readers?(uhm, I’m not saying mine is a good blog, nowhere near that category for now. but i want my blog to be the one that attracts many readers someday ;P )
so, hands up if you are the type that leave comment on the blog that you read. anyone? My little confession: I never comment on blogs that i don’t know who the owner are. so I only comment on my friends’ blogs (not all, just my closed friends).
the thing is, sometimes I read blog that i think is so good, but i just don’t bother to leave any remark that I was actually there, reading the blog with enjoyment. so if I put myself on the reader’s shoes, I,too, never comment. (and yet I’m asking for a comment now?how pathetic?!lol)
Geert lovink has an argument that is interesting to discuss:
What Lovink put as his point is true. I always hesitate to put my comment on someone’s blog, especially if I don’t agree with what they are trying to say. I always avoid controversy especially with strangers (who knows that someday you will meet someone you once argued online?how if this person is your future boss?lol).
There are 2 types of people. the first one is just like me, the one who will never able to argue with people they don’t know (my reason is: thinking of online situation as real situation, would you bash someone you don’t know at the first time you guys both meet?I don’t think so). the second one is, on the other hand, the people who feel comfortable to argue with people they never meet, and they feel like that because they don’t feel attached with the people they argue with (and sometimes, these people are usually very nice in the real life, they don’t act like b*tch like when they are arguing online). Discussing something online or arguing over something is one common online culture. Take example of Youtube comments, how often do we find Youtube users arguing over the video that someone think the video is funny, but other may think it is (for example) racist? fans vs haters of (let’s say) Justin Bieber? and how often the argument become more and more personal such as: “can’t you spell? your comment show how uneducated you are.” Well, when it comes to online discussion, sometimes we forget about Netiquette, we go too far, just because we don’t know who we are talking too and feel safe to mock/badmouth people.
whoops, I’m nearly out of topic now. (sorry, I always ramble around)
Back to the topic…would you comment on random blog?
so far, people who ever commented on my blogs (yes, i have several blogs before) are my friends. once, i receive a comment on my blog and i don’t know who is the one who commented. I was really curious and i felt the urge to find who s/he was because that blog was my personal blog and only my best friends commented on it. so here it is, i got comment, but i actually don’t like it lol.
the other time, to promote this blog, i put a link of one of my recent post on my Facebook profile. From the blog statistics, i know that some of my friends read it. but again, none of my friend comment on my blog. They did comment….on my Facebook profile….lol
and the day after, one of my friends said, “i actually read your blog yesterday and wanted to comment, but i felt hesitate.” i asked,”why?”. She answered, “well, to comment on your blog, i just don’t feel right. It may just be meaningless comment. err, anyway, are comments counted as the assessment of your blog assignment?if yes, i’ll comment. but if not, i tell you what i think about your blog now, right away.”
So, probably, to participate in online blogging is not an easy thing. we may be afraid of saying ‘ I disagree’ on someone’s blog. and even to say ‘I agree,’ is not an easy thing to do or we simply think it’s meaningless (in fact it’s really meaningful to get someone commenting on your blog, trust me). we are afraid of people’s judgement.
and now, if you ask me, “what would I do if a reader say s/he disagree of what i posted on my blog and s/he criticise me via comment?” Honestly I don’t know. I know I should be a moderator of my own blog, I should reply in a clever way without creating further controversy. I don’t want to be known as a ‘basher’ or make people don’t want to comment anymore on my blog just because I easily become agitated. I will surely lose my potential readers because of that.
so tough choice, would you rather have zero comment?or many many comments on your blog that disagree with your idea (or worse scenario: two readers are arguing over your idea). would we rather disable comment feature from your blog if your post contain controversy (like what Claire Write advised in Lovink’s Blogging, the Nihilist Impulse p.28, so you don’t need to deal with possibility of zero comment)? Yet, David Weinberger(Ibid, p.28) sees blogs as a medium for people to communicate with each other. so comment feature is kinda necessary based on this argument. hmmm, confusing.
so, yes, because i enable you to comment on my blog means: i need some comments!
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