Helping Academia Steal your Photos.

[amolitor]

I was downloading photos from the internet in 1989, maybe even 1988. Well, technically it was Usenet, that ran mostly over the internet in those days.

The web wasn't here yet.

 

[BrianV]

"Arpanet", I knew people that remember the migration to IPV4. Half the computers stopped talking to each other because of an ambiguity in the algorithm for calculating the IP checksum. One's complement arithmetic means a different thing to someone programming a CDC machine.

ANYWAY: what does and does not constitute "fair Use", "Educational use", "research-purposes" versus stealing : makes no difference. As long as there are legitimate reasons to allow someone to download an image, selling software that makes it easier is legitimate. This concept goes back to the Betamax, when the motion picture industry wanted Sony to stop selling them. Illegal use: the chances are you will not catch the person selling your photographs, and even if you do- they are likely to be in some distant place. One RFF member was sent an image of their's from a different continent, used in an advertisement. Another RFF member recognized it from the gallery. I don't make a living my selling photographs, and do not worry about it. I was pissed-off when I found my software had been stolen, and tracked the person that did it. Let management handle it after that. Lesson Learned: if it is on the Internet, lots of people have access to it and you are not likely to know in how many ways it was used.