Ok.. today I am having a grumble. It has become commonplace for many people to incorrectly think it is OK to use someone else’s photographs to illustrate their own website, Facebook, twitter, Instagram or other social media account.

It just isn’t cool! Using without permission someone else’s photograph to put as a background profile picture on Facebook… or to use for some Motivational slogan on an Instagram post… or to use to catch people’s eye for your benefit… is just NOT cool. It is stealing.

If you havent taken the photograph yourself, then you need permission to use it unless it has a ‘Free Commons’ licence. Just because you can’t find the artist (probably because someone else has already ripped the photograph off) doesn’t make it right to use it.

A shift in awareness and responsibility needs to be made – to stop the ripping and stealing from others.

If you have friends or family who you notice have used images which aren’t their own…they are not bad people… it is just that they havent realised that using someone else’s photographs is stealing…. and perhaps we all need to find some courage to gently ask them if it was their photo… and if it wasn’t – gently suggest that perhaps it might be a better idea to use their own photographs or seek permission from the artist to use the image.

Instagram has a policy Instagram Terms of Use ( http://instagr.am/legal/terms/ ):

“The Instagram Services contain Content of Users and other Instagram

licensors. Except as provided within this Agreement, you may not copy,

modify, translate, publish, broadcast, transmit, distribute, perform,

display, or sell any Content appearing on or through the Instagram

Services.”

Let’s start to have more awareness around this and stop the rampant stealing of others photographs on the internet and have the courage to speak up to our friends and family about it.