To Share or Not to Share {Public Domain and Copyright}

Well, my dears, I have just read about what is legal and not legal in quoting lyrics on a blog {in addition to a few other things}.

It appears that I have infringed upon several copyrights by quoting hymns. I seriously never gave it a thought. I will be going back to those posts in which I quoted lyrics without permission, and rewriting the posts minus the quotes.

I do apologize for misleading anyone. This is the blog which spells out a number of answers. Copyright 101 for Bloggers is in two parts, maybe three. Some questions which are not addressed in the posts are answered in the comments.

The only confusion for me lies in the area of Pinterest and Tumblr, where things are re-pinned and re-blogged, not from the original source. I thought that linking to the author was enough, but apparently not. Unless, of course, the author or photographer has posted them on Facebook, which apparently makes everything public. Or unless they have made share buttons available, in which case I unknowingly have made all of my material public.

This is something to mull over, to pray over, both to do what is right in regards to other peoples’ material, and in deciding what to do with my own.

I also learned that one does not ever need to purchase a copyright when blogging. All material on one’s blog is automatically copyrighted as of the date of publishing. Which doesn’t make sense, since backdating is possible.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this subject? I will research it further. This is only one source, one with which I am unfamiliar, but it does make sense. And I truly do wish to do the right thing.

But this is a sharing post 🙂 And share I shall. I have two things for which I obtained permission from the owners {before I found all this out}.

The first is a quote from Twitter. The author says it comes from her devotional book, which I have yet to check out.

Choose humble trust over prideful self-sufficiency. Cling to the truth that God cares for you and will graciously work in his time and way.

Kathy Howard, author of God Is My Refuge

The second is a picture of my grand and his friend in their halloween costumes. Their moms are friends. They are spending a few days together this week, visiting from out of state while dad is hunting. I hope you enjoy. I think they are just precious {I may be prejudiced}.