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| Boy Scout Park Pavilion |
Mr Chapoton, who has developed a website "Official Mullett Township Government", hosted on Google blogspot, is evidently a regular reader of our blog. He read yesterday's original post concerning this matter. We appreciate his prompt attention to the use of our photo without any acknowledgment of the source and he has removed it from his website.
Mr Chapoton stated verbally to me he used Google image search and "found" the photo and had no idea it was from this blog. In an email, he also stated he saw no copyright notice.
Please try this experiment yourself. Do a Google search for-boy scout park pavilion mullett township -and then click on "images". Move your cursor over a picture and the source is clearly shown. Click on the picture and you'll see it enlarged in front of a background of this blog. Clearly our photo.
To quote from the US Copyright Office-"Under the copyright law, the creator of the original expression in a work is its author. The author is also the owner of copyright unless there is a written agreement by which the author assigns the copyright to another person or entity, such as a publisher." " While use of a copyright notice was once required as a condition of copyright protection, it is now optional.""As a general matter, copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner."
Simply stated Mr Chapoton, if you didn't take the photo, do not have permission to use it and have copied and published it without permission, you have violated US copyright laws.
When representing a government entity, the public expects and deserves ethical conduct.
