Hold on a second, I need to jump up on my soapbox.
Ready?
Ready.
So. You. You, the person who sees fantastic recipes on Facebook and hits the Share link, QUIT BREAKING THE FREAKIN' LAW.
I'm serious.
I should probably back up for a second ... I think it first hit my radar about two months ago. I opened up Facebook and saw one of my photos. It was a photo from a recipe that I very definitely made up all by myself. It was a recipe that very definitely didn't exist on the internet before I posted it. Next to the photo were some of my words. Not all of them mind you, but some of them. Enough of them to describe how to make the food in that photo THAT I TOOK AND OWN AND MAINTAIN FULL COPYRIGHT OVER.
But I hadn't posted it on Facebook.
So, I clicked the link and found a whole page filled with recipes, intermixed with (IRONICALLY) Bible verse after Bible verse. Every one of the recipes had been illegally taken from a blogger's website. Apparently you can be a good Christian while breaking copyright laws.
That's what it is, by the way. IT IS BREAKING THE LAW TO TAKE A PHOTO THAT BELONGS TO SOMEONE ELSE AND POST IT AS YOUR OWN.
More so, when you hit that Share link, you're being a GIANT jerkface. It's not "sharing" or "being nice" or a compliment when you share that photo that you have no right to share. The photo is stolen. You distributed stolen goods.
I don't know exactly what the law says about all of this, but I can point you to Facebook's Terms of Service. Go down to Protecting Other People's Rights and read the first line. They say it right there -- if you share content that is stolen, you are violating the Terms of Service.That means your account can be suspended without warning. Then how will you play Candy Crush all day long?
There's a right way to share content that you find on the internet and there's a wrong way. Let's go over it, shall we?
Posting a link to a recipe that you want to try? RIGHT WAY!
Copying and pasting a recipe into a post? WRONG WAY!
Posting a link to a blog that frequently posts content that you like? RIGHT WAY!
Downloading that photo of my daughter and posting it on your own Facebook account? WRONG WAY!
That happened, by the way. A few weeks after the recipe post, I found this photo of Alexis on a Facebook page.
As I always do when I find my copyrighted materials used somewhere without permission, I sent a polite message. Just a little, "Hey there! That's my photo. Could you please remove it?"
The page owner didn't take it down. Instead, she posted a rant about "stupid people who don't know how the internet works." No. Really. She said that. On a public page where I could see it.
So I sent a cease and desist email. Sadly, I have one saved on my computer. I have one because I send it at least five times per month. At least five times per month I spend my valuable time telling people it's not OK to steal my property.
After the cease and desist email, I got a reply. "I found the photo on the internet. If it's on the internet, I can use it."
FALSE! NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT TRUE!
The page owner then went to my Facebook page and left a rather lovely post on the wall, which hopefully no one saw because I deleted it and banned the person faster than you can say THE NERVE.
I filed a complaint with Facebook and the content was removed, but still. STILL. That's not the point. The point is why should I have to actively work to get other people to obey the law? I very seriously don't understand.
So.
So ... I guess my point is, please! Please do share my links and tell your friends how great I am! But please don't copy and paste my stuff and try to pass it off as your own. And PLEASE stop sharing those photos and recipe posts on Facebook. Not only do your friends think you are SUPER annoying (and they do!), you're encouraging someone to steal.
Stealing isn't cool. Never has been, never will be.
<end rant>
