What A Great Idea! I Wish I Had Thought Of It....

The picture above is a screen capture from the Hunks Galore website, one of the sites that I highlight in my link list here (click on the picture to see the site in its own window). Pictured is their post from this past Sunday, titled "Hunks in Jumper." Regular OYGA readers who look at the pictures in that post may feel an odd sense of deja vu, since every single picture in the post is identical to my own post exactly one week earlier, titled "Overalls" (January 28).

Coincidence, you say? Perhaps, although it would be a pretty amazing coincidence that even the filenames that I gave my pictures (I always name the picture files to help me later identify them in my files according to their posts) are identical in that post.



Now, I know that picture sharing on the internet is by nature a murky ethical area. I deal with it daily and have attempted to balance being honorable and being realistic. I do not post photos when I know the owner has asked for the photo not to be copied or published. I do not use an entire post of pictures from one source unless I give credit to that source. Frankly, I spend a lot of time scouring the internet trying to find photos that have not been reproduced on every other site out there and yet which I can post without purposely offending those pictured.

But the reality is that pictures on the internet are stolen/borrowed, copied, and re-published with such ease that it is impossible to create a blog such as this and know the original source of all the pictures. Because of this, I placed a link to my statement on OYGA picture policies very prominently near the top of the left column of the blog. That statement includes a promise to remove immediately any photo posted here that the owner of the picture does not want posted. This has happened on only one occasion, but I immediately offered my apology to the person involved and promised to remove the photo. And I will continue to do the same in the future.



So it does not bother me in the slightest that someone would take pictures from my blog (which are not "my" pictures in the first place) to use on theirs. However, it does irk me a bit that someone would take advantage of the hours of work that I have put into making my posts themed and original, copy them wholesale with no additional effort on their part, and give no credit to their source anywhere on their site (and, to annoy further, all this after I have given free publicity to their blog on my link list from the time OYGA began).



Well, at least I can get a bit of satisfaction in realizing that, although Hunks Galore has been in existence nearly twice as long as OYGA, we just passed 100,000 hits yesterday, significantly higher than their total. So I know that a lot more people will enjoy reading my little (good-natured) rant here than enjoyed their "plagiarism" on Sunday. Maybe they will even be embarrassed enough to add my blog to their link list (hint, hint).

P.S. - I do like the Hunks Galore site, so don't boycott them on my account or anything...lol.

-Eukolos :-)