The Importance of Correct Image Attribution

The internet is rife with images that seem to have no owner.

It’s not something people generally think about – we just take it for granted that if they’re there, they’re there to be shared.

I’d encourage you to pause and think about this issue – especially as a part of the handmade/creative community. Nobody likes to be copied, and no-one likes to have their images taken and used without credit, either.

Today is about proper image attribution – especially when it comes to blogging. We’ve already talked about how to properly link images when Pinning them, and I’ve shown you how to use flickr both to share your own images and to find images to use on your blog.

But – how do you make sure to properly attribute images? And how do you keep your own images from being ‘stolen’?

A while back, I read a thought-provoking blog article by Frolic!, and I wrote the following post on Epheriell Designs about it. I thought it would be worthwhile to share that here…

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In the post, Chelsea give some awesome guidance as to how to credit images. She makes it clear that it’s her own personal perspective, but I think she hits the nail right on the head.

This is a topic that I’ve been thinking on for a while now, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to proceed. It seems to becoming more and more talked about in the blogosphere – especially amongst design bloggers. The prevalence of image-sharing sites that don’t credit the source is quite frightening, and – I’ll admit – in my earlier days as a blogger, I used sites like imgfave and weheartit to find pictures, though I stopped quite a long while ago now.

If you look at some of my earlier blog posts, you will see me being horribly guilty of not crediting images properly. I think it’s something that wasn’t thought of as much a few years ago, but it’s really hit home to me recently how important it is to do it properly.

These days, I tend to use flickr and Pinterest to find images to use on my blogs – not only because they are huge repositories of wonderful images, but mainly because it’s usually very simple to find and credit the source of the images.

For a long while now I have aimed to link each image I use back to its original source. Using the flickr tools makes this easy – I usually just insert the html from flickr and it not only links back, but gives attribution details when you hover over the image. But is this enough? I don’t feel that it is, for me, anymore. So, from now on you’ll see a little attribution at the end of each post (or, if it fits into the flow of the post, perhaps in the text itself).

I’m also going to be more pedantic about crediting where I find my ideas and inspration So, if I blog about a designer, for example, I will aim to share where I first came across the person, too.

One thing I don’t often do, which is also discussed in the Frolic! post, is ask for permission to share images before I blog them. I feel that so long as I am crystal clear about the source of the image, it’s not necessary… but perhaps I’m wrong? Personally, I am more than happy when someone blogs an image of mine, with a link back, because I see it as free publicity. But perhaps there are people out there who think differently – if so, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

I’d also love to hear how you credit images and sources, and what your thoughts on the issue are.

P.S. if you are looking for the source of an image, a really useful tool is tineye.com– I’ve been using this for around 6 months now to trace images. It’s not always possible to find the source, but it definitely helps most of the time!

{image by Mandy Bryant/The Light Fantastic on Etsy}

{Frolic! post found via @Blackcurrentpix via @Daydreamlily}

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So, as you can see, I’ve been very guilty of not crediting images in the past, and I feel really bad about that. This is why I’m stressing the importance of doing this from the get-go!

One of the reasons I don’t use Tumblr very much (if you don’t know what that is, I’ll discuss it next week) is because it’s so easy for images to get separated from their source – and on Tumblr no-one seems to much care about image attribution.

Mostly, I think the lack of attribution is due to ignorance, rather than maliciousness. People see something pretty and they want to share it… but they often don’t even consider where the image has come from. Be ye not so thoughtless!

So – how do I protect my images?

This is the thorny question, and one that doesn’t have an easy answer, I’m afraid.

• you can put a watermark on each image – but clever people can crop/edit that out, and it makes it a lot less likely that people will share your image
• you can upload your images to flickr and set the license so that people can not share them – again though, that’s kinda shooting yourself in the foot, because the more people share your images, the more exposure you get
• you can never put any images online, ever. Yeah, no. But honestly, this is the only way to be SURE that your images won’t be misused

My personal solution to this issue is to simply do my best to credit other people’s work, so I’m not contributing to the problem of homeless images, and to politely contact anyone who I find using my images without attribution so they can add it.

You’ll find most people will be more than happy to know where an image originates!

That’s it for this week! Next week is all about blogging – and tomorrow we have our next chat.