Photography, Copyright and Attribution
by foodethics
We’ve been trying hard to get to the bottom of the complicated issue of handling photos, other than your own, in the blogosphere. Fortunately, a professor of law at Case Western, Ms. Jacqueline Lipton, PhD, was kind enough to weigh in. Her comments are below, and we’ve amended The Code, to reflect this issue with a simple: We will respect copyright on photos (with a reference to these same notes).
In response to your query, generally it’s wise to always seek permission from the copyright holder if the image in question doesn’t have a license attached describing permissible uses (eg a Creative Commons type license).
Of course, depending on the type of use being made, the reproduction of a photograph without permission could be a “fair use” under the copyright law, particularly if no commercial use is being made of it and it is not interfering with a market for the photograph – which may well be the case on many blogs. Thus, the otherwise potentially infringing use could be excused under the fair use doctrine.
It is important to recognize that the question of attribution is a separate question to copyright infringement. While you should always attribute the source of a picture, copyright infringement is a separate question and you can infringe copyright even if you give appropriate attribution. While many copyright holders will only ask for attribution in return for permission to use the picture, it is NOT a general rule of copyright law that if you give appropriate attribution, you have not infringed copyright. Copyright law deals with acts of copying or displaying a picture, not how it is attributed.
Food Blog Code of Ethics 
Thanks for this! Although, this is noting different than anyone else with a common sense would presume and what many bloggers talked about a lot of times. I hope this post will have more effect coming from a reliable source.
I think you should expand the commentary somewhere on what fair use is, I think there are a lot of misunderstandings about non-commercial blogs having fair use rights to other intellectual property. (For the most part fair use is claimed by educational institutions and when “the picture becomes the story” such as the startling photo of the plane in the Hudson River with passengers on the wing.)
We’re still working on getting more information. As Ms. Lipton’s comments allude, this is definitely not a cut-and-dry issue. We will continue to post more as we get more specifics on the subjects of copyright and fair use.
foodethics (I’m not sure if I’m talking to the same person I’ve emailed) – the important thing to make a distinction about is that there’s a difference between what’s legally allowed and what’s ethical.
Legally we’re allowed to say what we want (freedom of speech and all that). We’re legally allowed to blog about restaurants and as long as it’s not defamation. The law doesn’t care about whether or not the food was comped or the visit was thirteen years ago but posted today.
Ethics is about morality & values. The law is just a bunch of rules.
I am really uncomfortable with a list of guidelines called a “code of ethics” that includes promoting fair use as an excuse to reuse other bloggers’ content just because the law says they can.
This is exactly why I removed a photo from my blog last week. It dawned on me that, even though I referenced the source, I was likely trampling on their copyright. Whoops. I of all people should know better.
Thanks for the continued info and discussion.
So it’s been a few months. Nothing here has been updated. Has this project been abandoned? Has there been any movement on clear guidelines for fair use of other blogger’s material?