As intellectual property, many photographs and images are copyright...they cannot be used without the owner's permission.

As a strong advocate of planning, I value working to achieve clear goals.

I do however I enjoy the experience of events taking on a life of their own...and leading to a positive outcome.

That's exactly what happened with my my posts about using images in web content.

My first post was intended as a single entry. After that post, it seemed to make sense to prepare yesterday's post about sourcing suitable photographs and images.

With the comments about copyright, it then made sense to try to answer Chanda Barrick's  comment:

“I wonder how you can easily determine whether or not a picture found on Google is copyrighted.”

As a result, my intended stand-alone post about photographs has led to a series of 3 posts...each of which has helped me learn new things.

Copyright Protection

As regards intellectual property such as text or images, my understanding is that in order to enjoy copyright protection, the creator of the property must take specific steps to claim the protection.

The creator of text...writer, author or content provider...claims this protection by using the symbol ©...either alone or with a date and/or name.

Some people even spell out the word and relevant details entirely.

Variations could include:

• ©
• © 2009
• © 2009 Larry Easto
• © copyright 2009 Larry Easto
• © copyright 2009 Larry Easto all rights reserved

Copyright-Protected Images

Applying this approach to images, it seems to me that for the creator to claim copyright protections, he or she must mark the image as being protected by copyright.

At the very least, the image should contain the © symbol.

It's probably also a good idea to add to name of the copyright holder, if for no other reason that it will allow interested parties to know who to contact for permission to use the image.

As a creator of intellectual property, I tend to exercise every caution in selecting images to include in my content.

If there is any kind of identifying mark...the © symbol, a letter, number, icon, logo or even a distinctive squiggle...I will interpret that mark as the owner's claim to copyright...and not use the image.

The flip side is that is if there is nothing to suggest the creator is claiming copyright, I consider the image to be within the public domain...and available for my use...and anyone else who would like it.

Your thoughts?