Charlotte-Mecklenburg 23 Things: Thing #5

I've noticed in my previous "plundering" of Flickr, many photographers (often with the most artful pictures) protect their images. I don't have a Flickr account, so I'm not exactly sure how this is done, but it prevents the random passerby (i.e. me) from simply right clicking on the image to save and use it elsewhere. It makes sense, especially in an age where that average, random passerby sees anything and everything on the interent as fair game. If only people had listened to their teachers and learned how horrible plagarism (i.e. theft) really is.

I have a friend who helped make a wiki for a collaborative writing game. It was a well put-together tool for all of the participants to upload information concerning their own characters and plots as well as refer to information about the settings and themes decided on by the game's moderators. You can imagine my sympathetic chagrin when we discovered her hard work in coding the wiki (making collapsible tables and other nifty gadgets that organized information rather effectively and aesthetically) had been stolen for someone else's without asking or assigning her credit for the work.

I think it is safe to assume that on the internet, if you don't say otherwise, people are going to assume your content originates from you. Sure, it's a silly thing to assume in a world with things like Google Images and Flickr, but I think the academic standard still applies to some degree. Unless you cite it, you stole it.

I should tell you all that the image you see to the right (my avatar for this blog) is from National Geographic, but if you have already ventured to click on it, you might have gathered that already. I should also tell you that the image below is a photograph taken by Thomas Hawk, a Flickr user, and is entitled "In the Jungle, The Mighty Jungle." If you click it, you'll go to his Flickr account (and see it in a larger size).