Is Inline Linking To An Image Copyright Infringement?
Copycense points us to a writeup by a patent attorney named Steve O’Donnell about copyright and blogging. Why a patent attorney is writing about copyright is not clearly explained. Initially, since the title of O’Donnell’s post was “How many copyrights does your blog infringe?” I thought the post might be one of those blog posts that reminds us how frequently everyone “technically” infringes on copyright incidentally and how this demonstrates how screwed up copyright law is. But, no, instead, this appears to be a serious “warning” claiming that most bloggers are risking the potential of $150,000 fines by using images they find online. Copycense points out the irony that O’Donnell uses an image in the post itself and notes that the image appears to be in the public domain, but isn’t sure. However, I think a bigger issue with the post is hidden in this sentence: If you find a picture on Flickr, another blog, or somewhere else online and upload it to your own blog (or worse yet, inline li
