I took this shot of George Leonard at his home when we talked about informal learning several years ago. George died earlier this month. I went online and asked Google to find a photo to use in a memorial. I found several, none by me and none attributed to me.
One newspaper article stated: “The photograph of George used here was copied from the Web where it stated that there was no clear copyright or other source material provided.” I wrote the author of the piece, who promptly changed the copy to read “It has been brought to my attention that the photograph of George used here was taken by Jay Cross and is copyrighted by him.”
© All rights reserved
This is not a big deal (I’m hardly a professional photographer), but I wonder how common it is.
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Jay: It would be nice if every piece of intellectual property could be protected, but the wild west nature of the Web makes it possible to just pick up things with ease. I have worked with a couple of younger editors and designers who feel — in all honesty — that if an image or text appears on a website it is free to be used by anyone. If wish that wasn’t the case. It’s a losing battle and the music industry has proved technology, like DRM, doesn’t do anything but piss off consumers. The New York Times technology writer, David Pogue, writes about this issue pretty often. You might find solace in his pieces. You won’t however, find a silver bullet.