Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregg Bell
Hi Harry. I wasn't sure what you were saying. You seemed to agree with me, (by saying "right"), then you said I can't do that.
But, for instance, how can I even get permission of the copyright holder if the photo is in the public domain?
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Gregg:
If the photo, image or illustration is REALLY in the PD, you don't need his/her permission. But, are you determining this by looking for the rights? Just because you use a CC search, or tell Goog to look for PD, doesn't mean that what's returned IS in the PD. When you track down an image on, say, Flickr, usually it will have CC rights, but you have to credit the photographer. CC is not "PD." It's similar, but not the same. PD means that the creator has either passed away, and it's been X years since s/he died, or, s/he deliberately put it INTO the PD, overtly and expressly.
You are not really being clear about the what/how you do. In your first post, you pretty much said, "I just want to be able to use these photos without doing all the work of tracking down the owners and permissions and just using it," arguing that you are not using it for commercial purposes, but you are. You're an author; you have a twitter account, and you can't realistically argue that you've NEVER posted a link to your book's sales page on Twitter, FB, etc., for people to look at and hopefully buy. That makes it pretty "commercial."
So, look, as we've all told you: get a tweeting and social media tool, like Hootsuite. You can probably use their free version, or their cheap version. It's only a few bucks a month. Then you can put image urls in all you want (and Hootsuite automatically shortens them for you, too). Or one of the other platforms--Mac users like another one better, that's a lot like HS.
It's either that, or do all the heavy lifting. There isn't an in-between. Sorry, but that's the way it is. As previously mentioned, you wouldn't like it if people posted free copies of your entire book all over the net, either. Photographers, illustrators, font creators--all these people have the same Intellectual Property rights that you do. Use the right tools, and you can worry a lot less about it. Or do the work. Or use stuff that's on archives.org only.
Hitch