Copyright / Linking Policy

The Short Form

• All contents of the site are copyright by me, unless otherwise noted.
• I encourage you to hotlink images and pages off of my site. In fact, I prefer that you hotlink an image instead of putting it up on an image hosting site or your own site.
• I do protect my rights to my own images and text. This includes exercising my right to send DMCA takedown requests.
• You may not use any of my images as a background on your site or as part of an ebay auction. If you link to my image, I will change it underneath you. This is not a legal request. This is a technologically enforced desire.
• I am committed to fair dealings with others. I can and have given folks permission to use my image in all sorts of non-commercial situations without charging them, largely because they asked nicely and didn't seek to take advantage of me.

Linking

Deep linking is an important part of the functionality of the web. Trying to create a "linking policy" is legally questionable, counter to the social norms that make the web work, and just plain obnoxious.

As such, if you have a site that maintains a linking policy (other than a policy like this or BoingBoing's) you are not allowed to link to our site. Otherwise, feel free to link to our site.

Network abuse and your Myspace background

While I disclaim any belief in a "linking policy" or other such questionable notions, the nature of the web is such that I have sufficient technological means to control the use of my bandwidth.

This means that if you use one of my images as your myspace background, ebay auction, part of an uncomfortably commercial site, or otherwise are using the bandwidth I pay for in a manner I do not appreciate, you will find that the image you link to has been changed.

I believe that if somebody wants to talk about my creations, or use them to illustrate the point of their blog entry, they should be able to use my images in these context. There are a number of people who have used my images to illustrate their poems or blog rants or other things. This does not bother me. I would prefer that you properly attribute the link, generally by linking to either the front page on the site or a page on the site where you found the image (not directly to the JPG).

Copyright and fair use

Copyright is an important social construct, used to reward artists, writers, musicians, and other creative folks for their contribution to society. As such, you must contact us for permission to use an image. However, it is also a responsibility for the creator to make this a fair exchange for society. In a perfect world, I should not have to state such things, but in today's world of corporate copyright abuse, I do...

I believe in fair use. I believe that Google has the right to thumbnail my images for their search engine. But I also recognize that you cannot hide behind the excuse of fair use to take advantage of my effort.

For example, quoting is ok, lifting a complete blog article is not OK.

Do remember that my images are available for purchase as prints for display or as stock photographs, so I take a dim view of people who upload them to their site outside of fair use and will protect my copyrights.

Your responsiblity for advice taken

I am very free with my advice and techniques because I've found that most of my readers have managed to innovate in their own unique and different ways instead of trying to slavishly copy what I've done.

Do try and keep things that way.