Copyright for baby racoons & pizza lovers

 Now honestly we all love Google Image Search.  It's a very useful tool, and who doesn't need to see 400 photos of baby raccoons at least once a year?

Now doesn't this easy access mean I can use those images for anything I want to?     In a nutshell... no.  Keep your paws off them.

But to explain copyright of images... let's pretend that photo of a baby racoon is a pizza.

Pizza?  Yes - just play along with me for a few minutes... 

You see a piping hot pizza on the break room table at work.  You are hungry and that pizza looks delicious.  BUT....  with no further knowledge of the source of the pizza, taking it is theft, right?  It's right there in front of you, and for anyone else walking by to see it.  If Carl in the office next to you takes a slice - does that make it okay for you to take one too?  NO.. Carl is a thief…   ...don’t be Carl. Or maybe Carl bought the pizza.

Who owns the pizza?    Whoever made the pizza owned it, then whoever purchased it (the rights) now owns it.  Or maybe some coworkers are splitting the pizza and they all own part of it?  None of them would appreciate you stealing a slice!

So the pizza joint is the creator of the pizza and the original owner. They can sell ownership of the pizza to whomever they choose.  You could compare the coworkers who jointly own the pizza to license holders who pay for permission to use the same image or copyrighted material. Or collaborators who equally hold ownership of a finished item.

Now without anymore knowledge of the true ownership of the pizza - what can you morally/ethically/creepily do with the pizza?    You could snap a photo of the pizza for personal use, to cry on social media about the salad you packed for lunch that day instead….   But you can’t go yell at Carl for stealing the pizza and make him pay you for it.  It’s not your pizza!

There is more to this diabolical saga of pizza ownership and melty cheese at your fingertips… but in the mean time, think twice the next time you are about to click “save image”.

Check back for the next post soon!

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer - please do not take my advice as if I were one. The raccoon photo credit in this blog post belongs to this photographer, where it is posted free for commercial use.  The oogy gooey pizza slice is my own original creation and property.