Paul F Burgueño

Are there any rights to the images from the Internet?

A few days ago I met at the awards Citizen Journalist with Paloma Llaneza, lawyer and now paying around your blog I find the following comment:

David - A question: using images from a website that can not be bought exclusively by them but are pasting a lantern on a new site on your property but the images are not hosted on your server is illegal or if the images are spread through the net is understood that there was no duty on it.

Well you see, David, each case is different. Then I will draw the basic lines of the Spanish law on this, not forming an opinion or legal advice applicable to specific cases. And I remember one time good advice is better than a future monetary claim. Here we go:

The publication of works (pictures, drawings, photographs ...) over the Internet meets one of the author's economic rights, which is the public communication in their mode of provision of Article 20 of the Copyright Act. This means that the author, or that person you have been given this power, is exercising its right to put his work on the Internet, but, of course, is not forsaking all others (reproduction, distribution, etc.. ) so you'll have to ask permission to use it.

We can therefore say that the provision of photos via Internet does not mean never abandoned any rights that the law recognizes the author over his work.

I therefore recommend not under any circumstances use the photographs from Google Images or other similar search engines.

If you want to access high-resolution images, "free" of almost all copyrights, today you can use those that provide services such as:

• SXC (is what I use to illustrate this blog)
• Creative Commons (here are all but very disorganized)
• Morquefile (I have not ever tasted)
• CNICE (for nonprofit educational purposes)
• Yotophoto (under construction)
• PD Photo (thousands of pictures ready to use)

In any case, you are always aware of the specific licenses that each page you specify for the works it houses. Similarly, I remember that you must always respect the author's moral rights (disclosure, paternity, integrity and other rights of article 14 LPI, listed in the first report).

And on your question about the option to embed a photo in such a way that is not stored on your server but the server is displayed from the author (come on, the "iframe" of all life), because I fear that you could not do. It is true that you are downloading the photo, or you're storing, or get on the Internet ... but you're communicating publicly without obtaining the prior right of the author. Plus, you're wrong and benefit of the bandwidth employed by the author and the photo is loaded from your server each time the page reloads and updates its objects. In short, if you use an image, make sure you have the license. Better a post without an image that post without rights.

In short, yes there are rights to the images that you find online.