# Copyright question (images) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 3, 2008, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question-images/436079 "2008-02-03T10:14:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question-images/436079/1 "2008-02-03T10:14:43Z")
Suppose I want to put an image (a comic strip, say) on my webpage, but I don’t have it on my computer (or my ISP’s computer). But I find it somewhere else on the internet on a page that does have permission to show it. So I use the html \ tag to reference that other location without getting permission. Is this a copyright violation? I haven’t made a copy of the image, except perhaps as a temporary file that’s been deleted. Yet whenever someone accesses my webpage, they see this copyrighted image in the middle of my text or whatever. Has any court ruled on this? ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question-images/436079/2 "2008-02-03T10:34:07Z")
Wouldn’t that be like hotlinking? If so, there’d be bandwidth issues, let alone any copyright stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question-images/436079/3 "2008-02-03T13:08:43Z")
It’s bandwidth stealing at best, and always a bad thing to do. Write for permission to use the the image on your sight, or don’t use it. Some people give permission to link to their sites without contacting them. I did not say embed their material in your web page. Rarely some give permission to use their picture on your site, without contacting them, this is always to be hosted on your sight, and not the image on their site. Bandwidth stealing can cost a lot of money for the site. I fully support people changing file names after a while and putting a substitute in it’s place that is offensive to people and says bandwidth thief. The fact that some people just couldn’t figure out the difference between linking an image on their web page and linking on somebody else’s web page, is one of the reasons HTML was turned off on this board ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question-images/436079/4 "2008-02-04T06:52:19Z")
I haven’t said I’ve done it. In fact, I have not, nor do I have plans to do so. Nor was the issue of bandwidth of interest. I just wanted to know if anyone had considered the copyright issue. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question-images/436079/5 "2008-02-04T08:15:03Z")
While i agree that bandwidth leeching, by embedding other people’s images etc. in your own html, is a Bad Thing, the fact is that it is very easy for website owners to prevent via the .htaccess file. Any person who has their own domain, and complains about hotlinking, really needs to learn how to use their site tools. The copyright question is an interesting one. I’m really not sure what the answer would be. Presumably, as a purely practical matter, it would behoove the copyright holder to go after the person who is hosting the image. After all, if the image is removed from the host site, your (and other people’s) hotlinks will no longer display the image anyway. There was a [case](http://www.law.seattleu.edu/fachome/chonm/Cases/future.html) in the late 1990s, where one company sued another for copyright infringement because the defendant’s website > [@](#): > > includes a “link” through which AAI reproduces web pages from the Futuredontics Site within a “frame” (“AAI Frame Page”). The AAI Frame Page includes a frame around a reproduction of the web page from the Futuredontics Site. The frame includes AAI’s logo, information on AAI, and "links to all of AAI’s other web pages. . . . Futuredontics has never authorized AAI to reproduce the Futuredontics Site on the AAI Frame Page. So, by using a frame, the defendant effectively “hotlinked” a whole web page. The defendant moved to dismiss the claim, arguing that > [@](#): > > AAI’s window or frame provides a “lens” which enables Internet users to view the information that Plaintiff itself placed on the Internet… Plaintiff’s complaint, however, alleges that defendants reproduce its copyrighted web page by combining AAI material and Plaintiff’s web site… (“The AAI web site includes a “link” through which AAI reproduces web pages from the Futuredontics Site within [the AAI Frame Page]. The AAI Frame Page includes a frame around a reproduction of the web page from the Futuredontics Site.”)… > > The parties cite to several cases which purportedly support their interpretation of the function AAI’s framed link serves. None of these cases, however, is directly on point. The court dismissed the defendant’s claim for immediate dismissal, but i don’t know how the case turned out in the end, or whether the two parties reached some sort of agreement before it was decided in court. Google has so far been able to argue that their image searches, which reproduce small thumbnails of images from web sites, and their webpage framing, fall within fair use guidelines. See the Wiki summary of the [Perfect 10 v. Google](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10_v._Google_Inc) case. Note that Google lost the fair use argument in California District Court, but that the District Court decision was reversed by the 9th Circuit Appeals Court. [This article](http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Rz8DtuV8N64Iw4/Bloggers-Cautioned-on-Copyright-Concerns.xhtml), from 2005, arrives at no firm conclusion about the copyright issues surrounding hotlinking. An interesting point that comes out of that piece, however, is that the bandwidth theft and copyright issues involved in hotlinking can effectively run in opposition to one another. One blogger > [@](#): > > defended his [hotlinking] action by saying that he wanted to leave the content in the control of the copyright holder. “That person can delete it, alter it or remove it,” he noted. So, if you decide to leave copyright control in the hands of the owner, you end up stealing their bandwidth. If you don’t want to steal their bandwidth, and place the image on your server without permission instead, you commit a fairly clear case of copyright infringement. It’s a rather interesting dilemma. Of course, the easiest and probably most ethical thing to do is to use only images that are out of copyright, or that you have permission to use. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question-images/436079/6 "2008-02-04T09:26:15Z")
I could imagine a scenario where some cartoonists might _want_ you to hotlink their strip - or rather, they might want you to embed it so that a click takes the viewer to their site - costs a bit of bandwidth, but gains a bit of traffic. Not sure if there are any that do this, but it’s a very common operational model with other content types, especially video. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question-images/436079/7 "2008-02-04T14:10:07Z")
If you’re going to hotlink, email the host first or else you might end up with something very disgusting on your webpage after the host figures out what’s going on and moves a couple files around at his end. [Hilariously disgusting story about that.](http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/000278.html) (Largely SFW if you don’t click the link he warns you about. The disgusting stuff is certainly two clicks away from this page.) ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question-images/436079/8 "2008-02-04T15:24:14Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] If you’re going to hotlink, email the host first or else you might end up with something very disgusting on your webpage after the host figures out what’s going on and moves a couple files around at his end. [Hilariously disgusting story about that.](http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/000278.html) (Largely SFW if you don’t click the link he warns you about. The disgusting stuff is certainly two clicks away from this page.) [/QUOTE] Here’s another example of this: [Image lifting-Imposter Prank](http://www.cockeyed.com/pranks/imposter/imposter.html) ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question-images/436079/9 "2008-02-04T16:00:36Z")
[QUOTE=dtilque] I haven’t made a copy of the image, except perhaps as a temporary file that’s been deleted. Yet whenever someone accesses my webpage, they see this copyrighted image in the middle of my text or whatever. [/QUOTE] The problem with this analysis is that it ignores all of the author’s rights except for reproduction. There are others: > [@](#): > > Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: > (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords; > **(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;** > (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; > (4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly; > **(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and** > (6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission. [17 U.S. Code § 106 - Exclusive rights in copyrighted works | U.S. Code | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/usc_sec_17_00000106----000-.html) (Emphasis added.) The copyright owner could argue that your site is a a derivative work or a display of his copyrighted image. The law in this area is unsettled. [http://w2.eff.org/IP/Linking/Kelly\_v\_Arriba\_Soft/20030707\_9th\_revised\_ruling\_pr.php](http://w2.eff.org/IP/Linking/Kelly_v_Arriba_Soft/20030707_9th_revised_ruling_pr.php) [http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/Kelly\_v\_Arriba\_Soft/20020206\_9th\_cir\_decision.pdf](http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/Kelly_v_Arriba_Soft/20020206_9th_cir_decision.pdf) (9th Circuit holds inline linking violates author’s display rights) [http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/Kelly\_v\_Arriba\_Soft/20030707\_9th\_revised\_ruling.pdf](http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/Kelly_v_Arriba_Soft/20030707_9th_revised_ruling.pdf) (9th Circuit revises opinion, omitting discussion of inline linking) [http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v11n1/meyer111.html](http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v11n1/meyer111.html) [Legal Issues on the Internet: Hyperlinking and Framing](http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april98/04orourke.html) [Web Site Legal Issues (BitLaw)](http://www.bitlaw.com/internet/webpage.html) [http://www.publaw.com/framing.html](http://www.publaw.com/framing.html) [http://www.mttlr.org/volfive/chan.pdf](http://www.mttlr.org/volfive/chan.pdf)