I’ve noticed an uptick recently in people flagging images as copyright violations when they are clearly not. I’ve noticed cases of school mate photos being flagged as copyrighted so the images don’t show up, and also manipulated or otherwise artificial images (which would almost certainly be conside…

Just wanted to note, the ‘copyright violation’ flag includes this: So something can be considered fair use and not an actual infringement, but still fall under that if the poster was not the original creator of the image.

If it falls under fair use, attribution is still important! Copyright law doesn’t let you just pass off other people’s work as your own, even if it’s for educational purposes.

[image] graysquirrel: Violates copyright law or was created by someone other than the observer and lacks attribution Yes. So please do not flag a photo as ‘Copyright Infringement’ unless you can show that it was taken by someone else.

with the school students, might they be flagged because the person is a minor and/or didn’t consent to the photo? I realize that isn’t exactly copyright infringement but maybe that was what was going on there. Maybe without calling anyone out in particular you can give a better description of what p…

One thing I see a lot (re incorrect flagging for copyright) is: User is in the field and hasn’t had a chance to upload photos to computer yet, so they take a photo of the photo on their camera screen with their phone and then upload that in the meantime (with the intention of getting an ID ASAP and…

I haven’t done any flagging yet but I have seen pictures of children obviously taking pictures of each other and thought those might run afoul of COPPA. What would be the proper way to deal with those? Sounds like the copyright flags are intended to cover plagiarism (failure to attribute somebody e…

Could we have some feedback here from iNat staff on this issue? This doesn’t seem like the type of site policy issue that a user should be making declarative statements about. For what it’s worth, I use that flag relatively liberally for any photo that has clearly been lifted from the internet or i…

I have no problem when a photo clearly lifted from a book gets used. Some examples: Photos of schoolkids by schoolkids (over 13 years old). Lack of consent is not copyright infringement. I get your point @charlie , perhaps we need a specific way to flag these? Watermarked photos. Please don’t just…

[image] mftasp: I have no problem when a photo clearly lifted from a book gets used. This is expressly against the rules of iNat - it is the second part of the rule you are mentioning. The uploaded media needs to have been recorded by the observer (or at the very least another person in the o…

Oh, my, that didn’t come across in any way close to what I intended to say. I meant I have no problem flagging photos as copyright infringemnent when they’re clearly lifted from a book! I also meant that flagging a photo as a copyright violation when it’s not evident that it is, is a form of censor…

Please don't knowingly flag images as copyrighted when they're not

General

Topic		Replies	Views
Concern About Internet-Sourced Images on iNaturalist General question , curation	17	601	February 15, 2025
On the use of CC0 photos downloaded from the web Curators	27	3266	April 24, 2021
Spotting copyright violations Tutorials	100	10505	May 29, 2025
How to report serial copyright violator General	6	1330	October 10, 2019
Record availability/documentation to educators of copyright violations from student accounts? Educators question	26	1213	June 2, 2022

Please don't knowingly flag images as copyrighted when they're not

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