Does Steemit count as commercial usage of content?
Content creators on the Steem blockchain seem to have a fixation with fair image usage, and I get it: if we use an image that we don't necessarily have the rights to use, we are making money off someone else's copyrighted material. Is it fair? The answer is normally no.
But Steem is not only a commercial blogging platform. It's a social network, like Twitter, like Facebook, like Reddit. Those platforms, however, don't have a focus on content creation but on content sharing. Steem, on the other hand, seems to be all about originality.
How should it be done?
I myself have been bashed before for using unattributed pictures. And, well, what other choice did I have? I could have:
- Not used it
- Struggled to find the source
- Go the lazy way and just put it in my post
In one occasion, I tried number 2. I really did, for hours, and found nothing. The image (in this post) may have been more than 10 years old, the original author lost in oblivion, covered by thousands of unattributed usages.
I could have gone for choice n° 1 and just looked for another image, but the story was inspired by that image and I felt that using another one would be counter-intuitive. I'm sure that there are many cute puppers on Pixabay, free images, etc., but the more I thought about it, the more I thought:
We're just overthinking this.
The nature of the Steem blockchain
This is not a newspaper or Wikipedia. This is my personal blog, much like I would post random stories on Reddit or Facebook, much like I would share funny pictures on Pinterest or 9gag. The only difference, of course, is that I'm making money off of everything I post, so let's go back to the first question:
Does Steem count as commercial usage?
I'm not selling my content or claiming authorship or ownership over any image. I'm just using them as illustrations to funny texts that I write and share, much like this one. I do care about attribution, and as often as possible I'll link the author, but what if I can't find the author?
- Should I just not use the images in those cases?
- Should I limit my creativity and delete texts that need the support of copyrighted images that I don't have the right to use?
- And beyond all of this, why should my personal blog be regulated by the same laws as encyclopaedias, books and magazines? It's just my tiny hub, after all, where in any other site I'd just post collages and memes without thinking that I may be "violating" an author's rights (harsh word, ain't it? For a personal blog...)