So what has Lady Gaga got to do with a post on Squidlog? Well, would you like to make a page about a Celebrity or other famous person or event on Squidoo, but are perhaps tempted to not be too careful about where you get the images? Or perhaps you really did not realise that you were infringing copyright when you made that page?
In my experience Squidoo Lenses about famous people, events and coloring pages are amongst the most common topics that violate Squidoo Terms of Service.
And the crazy thing is, it really is oh so very easy to get the pictures you want without having to steal them. And then you won’t have to keep looking over your shoulder wondering if the lens will end up reported and locked. You also do not run the risk of damaging your reputation among other Squidoo Lensmasters.
This post has been inspired by Squidoo Lensmaster fanfreluche who, like me, prefers to see people playing by the rules on Squidoo. Sadly, many don’t and it is frustrating to see these rule-breakers succeed by cheating at the expense of those who do not.
And I do literally mean “at the expense of” because the cheating lenses that manage to get into the payment tiers are pushing other, legal, lenses out.
Heck, I actually KNOW one of the ladies who make Lady Gaga’s hats and even I have not yet managed to get permission to publish some of the photos!! Imagine how fed up I feel when I see those images used illegally!!!
Fanfreluche has been posting about the problem on her blog: Squidoo HQ is taking some action against cheaters and TOS violations. In the post not only does she applaud the demise of someone who has been cheating big time for a long time, (who is most definitely not named, in keeping with Squidoo TOS) she also gives examples of Squidoo lenses that have been made without stealing the images.
If you are not sure about how to find legal images that do not infringe copyright, then I made a lens that outlines what you can and cannot do: Copyright Infringements. I also list the sites I use to get free images.
OK, so looking for legal images may take a bit longer than hot-linking to images on another site, which in many instances is illegal, or just saving an image to your hard drive and then downloading into a Squidoo module, which can also be illegal, but once it is done it is done. The lensmaster who has just had much of his account locked is probably now wishing he had done just that.
About AJ
Just a little random fact about squidoo and coloring pages: on February 17th, 5% of all tier 1 lenses were coloring pages. I leave it to you to figure out are many of these were legal….A bit depressing. if you add to the mix the other well known bad topic that manage to stay in tier one that makes quite a big percentage of bad stuff earning quite a bit of money.
Meanwhile, the new writing platform Zujava made the decision to ban coloring pages (they will be deleting all of them by the end of the week. They might authorized them on a case by case basis). Reason: most are not done legally and infringe copyright and most don’t add quality content.
No kidding on the ban on coloring pages. I was looking at someones profile last night and almost the whole account has moved over to coloring pages…and yes, most not legal. Besides that…we also have at least one person that was caught with copyright violations…a lot of them using that line of “if these are your images let me know and I will credit you” or something like that.
I am shocked when I see blatant “gimme the dollar, and so what if I am not following the rules”, and peppering this with a lot of whining and claiming ignorance when caught. Heck we all might have an image or so that in the beginning we added. Or maybe like a recent case someone got it from a free site that illegally offered it. Yes, but this is different, and I think everyone in this situation fixed it right away. I know I sure would and be super embarrassed too.
The thing is…I don’t care if lensmaster X is bringing in $10 illegally and lensmaster Y is onl;y bringing in 50 cents. One is illegal and one isn’t…and many others copied lensmaster X, some got caught already, and some haven’t. That is the problem with HQ not putting a stop to it NOW!
Oh well done Zujava! And as for 100 coloring pages in the Squidoo Top Tier, that really is bothersome
As we are seeing with Pinterest, it does seem there’s a growing number of people using the net who think something is “alright if it works” and I find that “bothersome” too.