My neighbor and I have property that abuts. Through both our properties runs a creek that is a known trout stream. She notified me that a local group was coming to inspect her part of the creek. I told her that I knew there were black-nose dace in the creek and asked, if someone in the group had the ability, could they take a photo of the fish for posting on iNat. She sent me a nice photo via email. How do I post this photo to my list?
Posting it might be copyright infringement, if whoever took the photo and shared it with your neighbor did not give explicit permission for you to publish their photo on iNat.
I know you told your neighbor what you wanted it for, but I would worry whether that was properly conveyed to the photographer.
Also, although you have seen the species in the creek before, you did not see that organism at that time.
Location would be in HER part of the creek tho.
As far as I understand it: To comply with iNat rules you should have seen the organism with your own eyes. If so you could use someone else’s picture from that observation at this place and point in time.
Occasionally, I post photos from somebody else who I know will never get involved with iNat. I know it is against the iNat philosophy, but for what ever reason, I want that observation on public record. I always have permission of the photographer and in the notes section I write “photo taken by so and so - used with permission”.
Welcome to the iNat Forum, @rondaroaring!
Ruth made a great point, and it applies to many situations, both on iNat, and in life: communicate!
No matter what you do on iNat, and whether it is approved or frowned upon by iNat guidelines, it’s always a best practice to write detailed notes explaining the situation.
Clear communication helps a lot when reducing the friction between observers and identifiers, for example when an observer feels that an observation is a legitimate wild record, and identifiers disagree.
I think with permission it is ok, there is even a dedicated project for such photos: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/my-friend-took-this-photo
I wonder if it goes explicity against iNat rules. If that was so, trail cameras wouldn’t be allowed. I understand that uploading other people’s pictures is not advised, but if for example I’m with a friend who has a camera and I ask them to take a picture for my iNaturalist can I upload it? What if I ask them to set up my trail camera? I believe uploading pictures taken by other people with explicit permission is mostly fine, although I would like to know the official position
Trail cameras are allowed – if it is your camera and your location (not WOW look what someone on FB saw somewhere somewhen and ‘encouraged with AI’ wow underwhelm)
Cannot find a guideline but many threads in the Forum
https://forum.inaturalist.org/search?q=trail%20camera
If you were there, and saw it, when your friend took the picture – you need only note for copyright, whose picture, and with their permission.
Trail cam pics are allowed if the user sets them up. If someone else takes a pic and you were there for the experience, it is fine to post their pic of it with permission.
That said, anytime you post a pic on iNat, it will assign the license to you (regardless of what you may post in the notes), so users should be aware of this. If someone has all rights reserved set as their license, for instance, they will effectively claim full copyright to a picture that they post, regardless of who took it. If someone posts a pic as public domain (with permission), there’s no issue.
There are a lot of previous threads on this, including with staff responses. Some examples:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/can-i-post-photos-taken-by-others/49500
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/posting-photos-that-arent-yours/36578
https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000192921-how-to-make-an-observation : “Please only post your own personal observations. “
Yeah, I think it’s ok with credit and permission. I’ve done it a few times personally… :)
Thanks, everyone. It’s not a matter of me NOT seeing them, I know they’re there because I feed them. I just don’t have a camera that can take photos below water, and this person did. So they took the photo.
But on iNat an observation is for an individual organism, not for a species. You didn’t see that fish at that time.
For example, if you see an animal but can’t get a photo, it would be totally unacceptable to pull a stock image of the same species off the internet and post that as “evidence.”
However, as others have noted, occasionally posting observations by friends and family is tolerated even though it bends the rules. I think it’s fair to assume that extends to a photo by a stranger who took it for you at your request, but you do need to make sure they are okay with your posting it, and with the copyright settings on your account.