>If you made something, put your hard work into it, would you be
>flattered if someone just walked off with it?  No, you'd be insulted
>that even though they liked your art, they didn't think enough of the
>artist to care about their feelings or wishes.  And that's not right.
 
Hey I agree with the comment this person made as well as all the other
points that many of you brought out regarding the "stolen" art work from
web sites, etc...
 
Big, I read what you had to say at the end of my message and couldn't
agree more.  You guys all made very good points.  Maybe I should have
worded things a little better to make my point more clear.  I certainly
don't want to give the impression that I don't think it's a big deal for
people to take someone else's art work and use it without permission,
because that isn't what I think at all.  I, too, am a writer and getting
back in to art work again, so I know how I would feel if someone just
took my stuff without asking and tried to take credit for it.  That would
really be upsetting to me.  But if someone was just saving a picture
because they thought it was cute and it wasn't being displayed on other
web sites, that wouldn't really bother me.
 
But something to also consider is many people who are fairly new at using
the internet may do this inocently, not realizing that it's illegal.
Because of the fact that it's so easy to right click on most images and
download pictures to your computer a lot of people simply don't realize
that there is anything morally or ethically wrong with it.
 
I, myself didn't realize that it was wrong to download images off of web
sites for a long time.  I really had no idea until I read disclaimers on
some web sites where this was mentioned.  Something you can do to keep
people from downloading images is to block the right click option making
it impossible to save anything.  I have been to a few sites where I right
clicked just to copy and paste something interesting I read to show to my
family, things I thought might interest them, but when I right clicked a
message popped up saying something like "the owner of this site does not
authorize the right click option".  Those weren't the exact words, but
you get the jist.  lol Anyway, the point of my rambling is to let you
know that there is a way you can block people from using the right click
option at all which would prevent your work from being "stolen",
"borrowed", "used for personal use only" or whatever the case is.
 
I just wanted to make sure you know that I don't have a callous view of
what some of these people are doing.  I agree that people should ask for
permission before they post someone else's work on their web site.  I
once posted a petition on my own web site that I found on the internet
because I was honestly trying to help the person to get more signatures.
It was a petition about protecting skunks, which I felt was a good cause
because I really care about animals.  Anyway, I copied and pasted it on
my site thinking it was a nice thing I was doing, not realizing that I
was supposed to ask for permission.  It was just a simple mistake, but my
heart was in the right place.  I just want you to realize that many
people who copy things do it out of inocence or even ignorance because of
being new at using a computer or the internet and they simply don't know.
 
Of course there are the ones who are trying to take credit for something
that isn't their's and that is always wrong!  In that case I think you
should report the offense to the I.P. as someone mentioned and have the
web site shut down if they don't remove the material.  But I would
make sure to ask the person first whether it was an honest mistake or
intentional before taking such action if possible.  You wouldn't want
to get someone in trouble over an honest mistake.
[Posted in FML issue 4117]