Your assumption is that copyright is not applicable unless the copyright holder specifically forbids anyone from using their intellectual property with a disclaimer or statement. That is not the case. Copyright is automatic upon creation of the work. Copyright is not transfered to another without the consent of the copyright holder. Permission must be given, not specifically withheld.

Giving the copyright holder credit or a link is not a way around using a copyrighted image. The reason for not reposting the image/text you use as an example is that it is copyright infringement, plain and simple.

Making money off it is also immaterial. Those considerations just create a reason for actual litigation. Giving away prints of someone’s artwork is the same as selling it.

The internet is rampant with copyright infringement, and everybody thinks it’s okay because everyone does it. Like Cedric says above, the nature of the internet makes it almost impossible to do anything about it. Most of the infringement is not hurting anyone… it’s not like an epidemic of bank robberies. Still, a little knowledge is not a bad thing.

Although the second response was improperly worded, and nothing can justify that, someone has a small point. No one expects art used on you IM icon to be your own. If they ask you where it’s from, and you tell them, you’re not claiming it as your own.

As the artist, you, of course, have the right to tell people how and when they can use your artwork. As you have said you’d rather people comment before using your work for any reason, I am sure that no one will use your artwork again without your permission, even if it is only for an IM icon. But if you hadn’t, as long as people did not claim it as their own, they really weren’t doing anything wrong.

I, personally, do treat CNN and Aunty June’s blog in exactly the same way. As long as I don’t know CNN/ Aunty objects, I see no reason why not to repost the image/text, then write “- Image/text from [Somewhere].com”, ideally linking to the specific post/page it comes from, even without their permission.

Isn’t it fair use to reuse something from the internet, as long as you say where you got it from? Whether something belongs to a single person, a company, or anything else.

(In all these cases of course, it is assumed that the image/text is not being used to make a profit, in which case I believe fair use does not hold?)

Still, great article and great blog. Keep up the great work.