Yesterday a friend showed me a redesign of a popular website and inquired wether I was a part of it. It was the first time I’ve seen the new design, so he sent me a fairly familiar picture from it - an old illustration of mine, flipped and colorized. An obvious rip. I don’t like people stealing my work and I don’t think anybody does.

So what was I to do? The site had no contacts written, so I wasn’t sure who to blame. I did a whois on the domain and it presented me with a name, email and some more info of the person in charge. I sent a friendly email with a few questions. I got a really quick response explaining how the designer used Google images to find appropriate artwork for the new design and this is how my illustration got in. But they replaced the image with a new one and he apologized. No hard feelings here. I’m glad this guy was so understandable of what went wrong here.

I do feel flattered if people want to use any work of mine as part of their project and I can’t remember a time when I said no to such an inquiry. But I don’t like them deciding on their own, wether it’s okay to use the image.

Though I have to admit, I have done such crimes in the past myself. Years ago. But I’ve learnt to respect people’s work and licensing. So now when I do use other people’s work I make sure I’m allowed to do so by either the author himself or by the work’s licensing, be it GPL, LGPL, CC, whatever.

So where do I find such images? Here are a few links:

• Creative Commons search for any type of work

• stock.xchng for photos

• kde-look.org, usually for icons

• Google, yes, but I usually append “GPL” or “free” to my search term, to find only appropriate results

Just make sure to always read the licensing under the exact image you would like to use. Some authors allow you to use their work as you wish, some won’t allow commercial use (they don’t want you to get paid by using their work), some would just like you to drop an email telling them you’re using their work. Most of them however, ask to be credited properly. Just read. If no licensing is given, it usually means it’s not meant for you to use the work. Move along, nothing to see there.

Oh and one more thing - not only is it not nice to “borrow” other people’s work, but it’s also illegal. After all, you’re not stealing bananas in your local supermarket, are you? :)