I think there are still people out there that think that anything on the Internet is “public domain,” which is, of course, wrong.

From what I’ve seen, participating in copyright related forums and mailing lists, most people online don’t have a clue about copyright and many of those who think they do have got it wrong.

And, teeni, it is illegal for someone to take your image and do something with it, other than what is considered “fair use.” The problem is catching them if they do infringe on your copyright. That’s generally up to the copyright author (the originator of the work). which would be you.

Of course, the tricky part may be if bloggers are considered public figures or not and whether parody would be protected, which would be more the case if bloggers are public figures.

Like the stuff you and your minions, and others, have done to my avatar. Or when I put Speedy in jail.

That’s why I typically avoid doing anything with people’s images. I think Speedy is the only one (except for John Chow, which was done for Michael Kwan’s contest), and I figured he’d be okay with it, since he does worse things to himself and it’s not the first time someone has put his head in different images. But, I would promptly remove it at his request. Generally, I just don’t do those things at all.

Lots of things on the Internet are examples of copyright infringement. But, a lot of times, the copyright holder doesn’t pursue things. A lot of stuff could probably be taken down with a simple request or a cease and desist letter. But, some times people would go after infringing works for various reasons. One might be that the infringement promotes the work more than it hurts it. You’ll see this sometimes with fan sites, like for TV shows and stuff. Often, the rights holder doesn’t have a specific public policy about such things; they’ll typically go after anyone trying to make money with an infringing work. But, sometimes they might actually have a public policy about the use of their works that spell out how you can and cannot use their images. Generally, they realize that fan sites help promote the work pretty much for free, so they don’t want to stomp that out. So, they either look the other way on copyright infringement or they only go after the ones trying to make money off of it.

Some people think that, if they do infringe on a work, first they’d get a cease and desist letter asking them to stop. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. The rights holder can sue, but is likely to start with a lawsuit (instead of a cease and desist letter) if the infringement is causing harm, typically financial though it could be something that is harmful to their public image. But, in most cases, like where you stick an image on your blog or something and aren’t trying to sell it, you’re likely to first get a cease and desist letter asking you to remove the image. (Or, if the blogger is your friend, you could just ask nicely first.) And, a lot of times, it’s not worth the expense of a lawyer when a simple request would have sufficed.

Of course, none of that should be taken as an encouragement to infringe upon copyright. It’s really best not to get into the mindset of “this is for their own good” thinking you’re helping to promote someone or something. That can often lead to no good at all, for you! Just because everyone else is doing it shouldn’t be used as any kind of justification.

Though I will say that Michelle started it…

my middle name is “Matlock”

You could trademark your name, Barney.

I want to copywrite my “name”. Can I do that???? (my real name is Barney Eldorado)

“Fair use” is a vague portion, as you’ve said.

I would also have far greater protection if I registered the work, which would let me collect all my legal expenses from you too, if I were to win the case, of course.

And, it’s also harder to claim a copyright on a modified public domain work. There has to be substantive change or editing made to it in order to claim a copyright on it. If I recall correctly, just scanning in an image and claiming a copyright on your scan is not sufficient to claim a copyright, as there is little to no creative addition in just scanning the work.

And, in a written public domain work, just changing a word here and there generally is not considered sufficiently creative to merit copyright protection either.

But, I’m not a lawyer, so no one should be taking this as any kind of legal advice.