Grrr.

[puddingcat]

From snapesbabe, purveyor of outrage to the online classes:

Y'all heard of a community called iconscraper?

It's a community that is using LJ's recent pictures feed to grab icons, pics and small graphics posted anywhere on LJ at any given time and post them as icon posts for people to snag. AND it's hotlinking every single picture it's posting. 200+ pictures per post all hotlinked from various places on LJ. There are thousands of icons and even what looks to be personal pictures being hotlinked from LJ posts and posted in the iconscraper community.

Of course there is no credit given or even acknowledgment or explanation. It's been reported to LJ by some people already, but they appear to be claiming there is nothing they can do.

This is what you need to do to stop your stuff being hotlinked, if you would like to do so:

"If you wish for images you post to not be included in the Latest Images
feed, you may go to http://www.livejournal.com/admin/console/ and type:

set latest_optout yes

This will prevent your images from being included in this feed. The
feed also does not contain images posted with the Friends-Only or Private
security at time of posting."

Hopefully if all the people who make fab icons add that bit of code in, they will only get crappy ones in their little feed and we can all laugh at them.


In other words, if you've posted a public post (even if you've subsequently locked it), the LJ picture feed and hence this community can look at it & link to the pictures. Nice of them, isn't it?

ETA: They claim to be picking up only pictures that fit the LJ icon criteria - 100x100 pixels and <40k in size. And, of course, this is filtered through my "I have no clue about computers" brian, so I could have missed the point completely (though I doubt SB would have done) :)

Comments

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

Instead I am going to unlock my last post *grin*

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Try making a cropped version forst - see my ETA :)

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

goatsey in icon size coming up!

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

In fact, I may make a public post of all the most offensive material I can find tonight.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Good plan!

[ihavecake.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a plan. *evil grin*

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

goatsey, bathtubgirl.... anything from somethingawful or similar sites!

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

No wonder LJ has gone slow!

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

And this is why you're doing a PhD and I'm not :) I hadn't even thought to try & connect the two.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Thank you; my icons aren't great but I'd rather lurk in silence.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Several people seem upset about pictures (icons especially) of their kids / themselves being hotlinked to - understandably, imo.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, it is a great illustration of the need to be careful what you post on the web.

An admonition that I need to take more to heart, really...

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

See, what you do is make 200 icons of goatc.x, tub girl and lemon party.

Yay!

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Also, it only grabs pictures that are usable as icons (100x100 or smaller, <40KB in size) so photos/pics bigger than that won't be "scraped" but obviously all your custom icons are up for grabs. :o(

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Well, they are anyway, really.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. There's nothing you can do if someone just goes to your user info page (or a post in which you used it) and grabs it.

It was very interesting to see how an icon I made for dire5 propagated. Not much of a problem as I just cropped and resized an existing animation for him.

[cabd.livejournal.com]

My icon is MY icon. If I see anyone else using it (which is unlikely, who else wants to be cherries) then I'll be put out.

Had a look at that community... What a well adjusted and socially competent chap that is.

[professoryaffle.livejournal.com]

Nice to see brian being used again I don't think I have had to turn to him for advice for a while!

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

I wish my computer Brian knew a bit more!

[the-xtina.livejournal.com]

Neat shit:

http://wiki.noljads.com/Console_Commands

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Nifty, thanks!

[munchkinott.livejournal.com]

For people with comms, the varation is "set for comm-name latest_optout yes"

*koff*TGT*koff*

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Mwah :)

[munchkinott.livejournal.com]

;-)

[whiskeylover.livejournal.com]

But have they not got a point?

How many icons & pictures consist of copied material from films, comics, etc.? Admittedly, the icon "owner" may have modified it slightly (by turning it another colour, perhaps, or by putting it into a series with other images to hilarious consequences), but most of the time it is hardly original artwork.

Even if one does bear in mind the original picture material, such as photos, etc., I fail to see the harm in that. Fine, if it was photographic evidence of a person, coated in honey and pleasuring underage penguins in a microwave, maybe one might not want that publicised- then again, what on earth are they doing putting it on the internet in the first place?


Why don't people realise, that on the internet, just because you found something first, that does not mean no one else is allowed to use it, or that they are 'stealing' it if they use it without permission/giving credit/bowing down & kissing the 'creator's' feet.

In the unlikely event that someone wants to use my icons or other pictures as icons, fine. It's not theft, because I can still use them myself, I haven't been deprived of them. And if someone thinks that they want a photo of me as an icon for them, then I might harbour some doubts as to their sanity, but why shouldn't they?


Finally, on a purely practical level, one can find those images quite easily, via a google search or otherwise, so I don't see that the community does anything reprehensible by making available otherwise secret material.

The only slight concern for which I can see any basis for is the fact that evidently even such images as are posted in protected posts become available, but that seems to be more a concern for the LJ security settings, rather than for that community.


And now feel free to shoot me down in flames ;)

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

My problems with it are:

- even if you go back & edit a post to private, if it was public when posted it can still be "scraped" (though this is an issue with the LJ feed).

- The hotlinking. It isn't just icons; it will pick up images from people's own websites if they fit the size limits.

- The attitude. No, I couldn't track down everyone who's copied one of my icons & force them to credit me, but just because people *can* take things without asking doesn't mean it's ok.

I agree that anything posted to LJ isn't exactly secure; I assume that anything I post, even to restricted friends groups, will get out eventually, just because people (including me) forget and talk. I just hope that the f-locking puts enough of a delay on the information seepage for it not to be important when it does get out.

Regarding the copyright, what about images that have been digitally altered to th point where they count as original work? Or karohemd's photos?

[whiskeylover.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but I still don't think there's a valid case for complaint.

- If you posted the image publicly, then it's "out there" and people will be able to find it. Legitimately.

- Hotlinking- what is the problem with this? It seems to be a huge issue for people, but what does it actually do? If I run a google image search it will also find lots of images on people's websites which I can then go and look at.

- Even if you could track down everyone who copied one of your icons you couldn't force them to credit you.


Copyright- ah. Well. What about copyright? "Images that have been ... altered to the point..."- What images? More often than not, the images used in icons, which are then being artistically altered are subject to copyright. So, one might ask oneself, why isn't there a huge wave of litigation against all those people who use some image as their icon, despite the fact that it's copyrighted?

Quite simply because they are not using it for any commercial or industrial purpose. Even with the original art, such as karohemd's photos, I would be very surprised if their use as icons would even come anywhere close to a breach of copyright.

If you put an image on the web, I really don't think there's much one can do to prevent people using it for their own personal purpose, as long as it's not commercial. Alternatively you might have a case if you can show that the way in which the icon is used brings you into bad repute.