I have a question. Does anyone have an answer ?

mfsob

It's not FSM doing it. Another reason for the red X's is probably the practice of hot linking, which can be a real issue because if you are doing it extensively in a picture-heavy post you are are, in effect, stealing from other people's websites by using their bandwidth without paying for it. Many websites prohibit the practice, some are more overt about it than others, but most will shut off hot linking as soon as they notice it. What is happening, basically is that every time someone here at FSM opens up one of your posts, that has links to photos from a bunch of other websites, is that those photos are pulled from those websites using the bandwidth (internet access) that those websites are paying for. The cost per photo can be small, sure, but over time it can be considerable. Many sites prohibit the practice outright.

The polite thing to do is 1) Ask permission to use the photo, if permission isn't already given somewhere on the website, 2) Credit the website it came from in your post, 3) Upload the photos to your own site, such as Photobucket for lots of pictures, 4) Link to the pictures from there, so it is YOUR bandwidth that is being used up, not the original website's.

     I like to present stories with attached pictures. However, this practice has come under criticism for using someone's elses bandwith in posting pictures. I have followed the suggestions, especially from mfsob, which I appreciate, by using the Flickr hosting web site to move pictures to the Forum and giving proper credit where credit is due. In my last posting on the story of the location of the CSS PEEDEE wreck, Flickr has removed the three pictures I selected. Can anyone explain to me why Flickr removed these pictures from the Forum ? You help is appreciated.

          Montani semper liberi !   Happy modeling to all and every one of you.

                           Crackers                              

My as a former website administrator. We now return you to your regular modeling activities.

The internet WAS free... now it is not. It will be less free in the future... big business wants to control it and charge for it and they're getting their way.

mfsob

NOTHING ON THE INTERNET IS FREE.

Th internet is free.  The data line to your house is not. 

Exactly - it's all about the bandwidth. That was what I meant by "stealing," which may have been a little strong. Chalk it up to too much caffeine.

By all means, use your Flikr account for photos and keep posting your interesting historical tidbits on here, I find them quite interesting.

There's definitely a big 'ol gray area involved. It wasn't until I was nearly sued for copyright infringement that I took an interest in it, for the purpose of protecting myself.

Copyright, , put simply, means that the owner has the right to determined how and when a piece is copied. That does not mean when it's posted to the internet that one loses that right. I can post a picture of my Dog on my web page and yet it's still mine, if a company picks up that photo and uses it in an ad campaign without my permission I can sue them to stop it (this has happened).

Just to clarify, what we were talking about was not about copyright,but bandwidth. I have donated a lot of photos to Navsource. They were scanned in at the National Archives and are public domain. However, Navsource has to pay fees for hosting and data transfer; typically a single fee for both, but if one goes above set values for either additional charges are happily assigned by the hosting company (this is another case where a company will advertise "unlimited transfer" to potential webmasters but then limit "unlimited" in their terms of service).

If you are sure that any photo in question IS in the public domain there are image hosting websites that will help you post the photo without dragging down someone's bandwidth. There are also protections for the ordinary user built into (American) copyright law. For example, you can post a copy written photo if you're using it as part of a review, critique, etc.. I've posted screen captures of DVDs when reviewing it or using it to discuss some detail, but I also make sure to attribute the source.

mfsob

Before anyone says, Whoa, dude, way to harsh, sorry if I came across that way, but -

NOTHING ON THE INTERNET IS FREE. Someone, somehow, someway, has to pay to put it there. It doesn't just magically appear; fairy dust doesn't keep it going; web pages don't mysteriously generate themselves. Any time any of us borrow or appropriate or use something we find on the web, we are, in effect, stealing from someone else, it''s just a question of degree. It can be a little bit and occasionally, or it can be a lot and basically full-time. I do not pretend to be the moral arbiter of the internet *laughs*, but I think it helps if people have at least some appreciation for, as Tracy said, the real-world ramifications of the things we all do on line.

   Thanks Phil H, Tracy White and mfsob for your input, which was a real eyeopener for me. In all honesty, I had no idea that I was "stealing" from somebody by using their pictures from other web sites. In my naivete, I thought once a picture was posted on a web site for all to see, that picture became in effect, "public domain'" for the viewer to use as he or she so desires. I never considered that I was pirateing or plagiarizing someone's property that had been paid for. There should be a disclaimer statement warning people not to use their pictures.

             Occasionaly, I notice a story of some historic ship wreck or of a nautical subject that I would like to share to the Forum members as a means of expanding many subjects of interest in the Forum. To highlight the story, I like to have a picture attachment. After reading this imput, I am wondering if I should discontinue this practice, or as it been suggested, transfer, a picture to a hosting web site like Flickr, which I use on occasion, posting it on the Forum and giving due credit at the end of the story to the actual author and picture source. If you have any comments, please inform me.

         Montani semper liberi !          Happy modeling to all and every one of you.

                              Crackers                

Before anyone says, Whoa, dude, way to harsh, sorry if I came across that way, but -

NOTHING ON THE INTERNET IS FREE. Someone, somehow, someway, has to pay to put it there. It doesn't just magically appear; fairy dust doesn't keep it going; web pages don't mysteriously generate themselves. Any time any of us borrow or appropriate or use something we find on the web, we are, in effect, stealing from someone else, it's just a question of degree. It can be a little bit and occasionally, or it can be a lot and basically full-time. I do not pretend to be the moral arbiter of the internet *laughs*, but I think it helps if people have at least some appreciation for, as Tracy said, the real-world ramifications of the things we all do on line.

X2 to what mfsob said. Navsource had to go out and outright block people from embedding images from their site in others because the extra bandwidth charges were eating them alive and slowing down the server.

The Navy Heritage and History Command's website (back when it was just the Navy Historical Center) was severely crippled for 6-9 months because they allowed people to embed images on other sites and the bandwidth that used was objectionable to the command hosting them. That command essentially throttled their speed to a crawl so that it would take ten minutes to load a page, if it ever indeed fully did.

So, while you may enjoy embedding photos in a hobby site, think of the real-world ramifications for businesses and individuals who pay to put things online.

It's not FSM doing it. Another reason for the red X's is probably the practice of hot linking, which can be a real issue because if you are doing it extensively in a picture-heavy post you are are, in effect, stealing from other people's websites by using their bandwidth without paying for it. Many websites prohibit the practice, some are more overt about it than others, but most will shut off hot linking as soon as they notice it. What is happening, basically is that every time someone here at FSM opens up one of your posts, that has links to photos from a bunch of other websites, is that those photos are pulled from those websites using the bandwidth (internet access) that those websites are paying for. The cost per photo can be small, sure, but over time it can be considerable. Many sites prohibit the practice outright.

The polite thing to do is 1) Ask permission to use the photo, if permission isn't already given somewhere on the website, 2) Credit the website it came from in your post, 3) Upload the photos to your own site, such as Photobucket for lots of pictures, 4) Link to the pictures from there, so it is YOUR bandwidth that is being used up, not the original website's.

My as a former website administrator. We now return you to your regular modeling activities.

Hi Crackers,

I'm not quite sure exactly what you're  doing in some of your pic links. I looked at the links in the Wasa thread and they seemed to have a Yahoo prefix.

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A2KJke50sQlNg0cAhzWjzbkF/SIG=12lunmkaj/EXP=1292567284/**http://www.modelshipmaster.com/products/tall_ships/Wasa/wasa7.JPG

Attempting to use the link above returns a message saying:

Forbidden

This link is not authorized by Yahoo! 

Perhaps you're using Yahoo to search for pics and you're pasting the links directly from the thumbnail returned on the search page? This would then attempt to open a  page with the Yahoo search result frame and a subframe displaying the actual page on which the photo is shown (which is not a valid photo) Clicking on a thumbnail returned by an image search opens the page on which the image is displayed rather than displaying the image alone.

I will usually view the page directly (removing the search engine frame) and right click on the pic and view its properties, which will give you the direct address for the pic, for example, http://www.modelshipmaster.com/products/tall_ships/Wasa/wasa7.JPG 

You can then highlight and copy this address and use the IMG tags (ir the "Insert media" button) to post the pic on the forum and you will get:

       Thanks Phil H Your in depth explaination of why I can not post pictures on the Forum . I sincerely appreciate your time and effort to instruct me on the perils of picture posting. Is there a method whereby I can safely post a picture without it being deleted ? Is there some code or sign that I should be aware of when searching for a picture on another web site that can be posted ?

 

      As a heads up alert, I have put aside my present build of the British East Indianman, FALMOUTH to construct a second scratch model of the British Revenue clinker hull cutter, DILIGENCE, shown in the above picture . With all the family Christmas activity to accommodate, I hope to have the time to post the construction results by the end of this month.

      Montani semper liberi !  Happy modeling to all and every one of you and a very Merry Christmas.

                          Crackers            

A red X usually indicates an invalid link. This can occur for a number of reasons, most often being that the pic has been deleted from the referenced site or the site has been changed and the URL is no longer valid or the site is offline or unavailable. Note also that some sites do not allow hot links to photos, usually requiring you to view the photo by navigating through their site.

I don't think it has anything to do with FSM's forum policies - the forum administrators have enough on their plate without having to trawl through every post looking for links to pics and then trying to decide whether the pics should be alowed to stay or not. If a link to a pic was deleted, it wouldn't show the red X. The red X indicates that the forum software knows it's supposed to display a pic, but for some reason the pic can't be found at the specified URL, as described above.