skinnerclan.org

With the advent of my site's destruction, as I went about reforming it, in my wisdom I sought after a new graphic for the Skinner Clan (really part of Clan MacGregor). I did a google image search, and found a link to houseofnames.com, wherein they were actually selling the images on their site. They had a couple of javascript prohibitions against right clicking and copying, but this does not stop one with the might of Firebug. I easily divined that their image was being displayed as a background image, and found the image path and called it up.

Now I had available to me an image (an image, mind you, that was already displayed on my screen without watermarks!) that they were trying to hock for nearly 20 bucks. It's an image that's in my browser cache.

Is it wrong to take from someone something that they've already given you of their own free will, yet they are trying to sell?

I get it's akin to, say, ripping music off of a digital, on-air stream. Say we have perfect clarity, and opportunism allows us to record what we hear. Is that stealing? If it is, it's a long-accepted practice. Would the use of these images fall under “Fair Use”?

Say I were to just take the image from their site and put it up here. Rename, resize the image (at that point, it's essentially a different image). Easily within my power, and perhaps even my purview. Yet, it feels wrong.

These guys have done a fair amount of work, providing these images (high quality images!). Displaying their wares unadulterated, they attempt to sell the fruits of their labor. Does their lack of security make it okay for me to take what they have dropped in my lap, while their clear intent was to prevent me from doing just that?

Is a man within his rights to take a photograph of a photograph on display for sale? Of course! But why? Image degradation? The fact that one is a material possession, and the other snapped out of the air at the camera owner's effort? It seems that there is a more fundamental reason, but I couldn't tell you what it is.

In any event, when push comes to shove if I get that sickening feeling that what I am doing is wrong, I simply relent. Perhaps I can find a different image…