mrorwell wrote in message
81...
On 20 Oct 2008, you wrote in alt.binaries.pictures.aviation:

Once images are uploaded on a newsgroup, you are able to put them on a
website as long as credit is shown to the orginial photographer. The
problem usually lies in when you are trying to pass it off as your own
work or if someone downloads and than prints or makes a print for
themselves to sell. As long as you are not making money off the
picture(s) or music etc, than no copyright law has been broken. This
is pretty mcuh the way copyright is handled in Canada any way.

This is not the way US Copyright works.

Even if a photo (or any work) is uploaded to a newsgroup, you are not
automatically granted the right to use it as you choose. Uploading it
does NOT put it in the public domain. There is never a time when it
automatically goes in to public domain until after the copyright expires.
Under current US law, could be 100+ years. (You have the Disney
corporation (among others) to thank for pushing for longer and longer
copyrights.)

Granted, the copyright holder may have a difficult time preventing you
from using it or tracking you down if you do use the photo without
permission, but they have (almost) complete legal control over its use.
The "almost" part refers to gray areas surrounding parody and reviews.

But copyright is WAY to complex to be explained in 2 paragraphs. Check
wikipedia for a better overview and links to more detailed explanation.

Thanks to everyone who replied. I can see that there is a conflict between
US and Canadian law. I'm in Canada. When I uploaded the images to Picasa, I
made sure that all of them were "protected." Any images that were
copyrighted otherwise had watermarks or a copyright note on them. I just
assumed that since they were in the public domain it was OK to post them on
Picasa because Canadian law allows it. Since there seems to be an issue
between different jurisdictions, only my own images are up on Picasa now.

Take care,

Nick