I am not intending to call anyone out and this was not written as some passive-aggressive attack on anyone. However, I think that as a Steemit community, we should all be working hard to make sure that we are properly crediting other people's images when we put them up on our posts. Due to posts being un-editable after 7 days and the fact that you can make money from your Steemit posts, I think that it is more important to properly credit the owner of images on Steemit that on a small personal blog.
For example, I have a little WordPress blog about D&D. I don't make any money on it and I am not always the best about crediting images I found online for it. However, if a rights holder complains, I can remove it instantly. Not so on Steemit!
Here on Steemit, I do not think there is a way to delete a photo, if it was not allowed to be used for commercial use (after seven days). So what would happen if someone's photo was used without permission and they complained? Could the author of the post be sued? Could Steemit be sued?
I am no lawyer, so in order to prevent any legal challenges, we should all use appropriate pictures and cite them properly. Below, I will go over my process. If it could be improved, or I am wrong, please let me know in the comments!
I do one of two things:
ONE: I take the picture myself. I agree to not be angry with myself for using my own pictures on my own post. However, I am not good at taking pictures. Even selfies are a struggle.
Yes, I am wearing a luchadore mask. It makes me 337% more handsome in every picture I take.
TWO: Use the Creative Commons to find pictures that I am allowed to use for commercial purposes. It is really easy to go and search for pictures to use at that website.
I generally go with number two.
In order to cite the picture correctly, I use the following template:
You can remove the asterisks if you want. I like the italicized look.
For the picture at the top of the post, here is what the markdown code looks like:
I hope this was helpful! Keep making great content and make sure to properly credit the pictures that other people make!
Picture Credit For The Photo At The Top Of This Post: "Do I Need to Cite This?" by tengrrl is licensed under CC by 2.0
Everything else, I took myself, either via my phone or screenshots from my PC