Need help on Copyright issue

[calibreezer]

My site is smokingifs Dot com . Watch for NSFW content

Now my question is my site is no different from http://www.animatedgif.net/

All of my images are Public Domain to my knowledge the question is am I allowed to use them?

 

[weblord]

i think as long as the models are 18 and above and it's your own.

 

[calibreezer]

I surfed different forums, and found gifs posted in avatars, and or other galleries, other forums used in post's ect collected them uploaded them to that site. These .gifs are used widely everywhere on the net..

 

[Dave_Z]

All of my images are Public Domain to my knowledge

But are they indeed public domain not to your knowledge?

 

[calibreezer]

Not sure I understand the question.

Your saying they are definitively public domain?

 

[npcomplete]

I believe Dave is saying that the net is *full* of images on other sites that are copyrighted, in violation of the copyright claim. Just because you see something on the net doesn't mean that it is not copyrighted by the original author/artist.

Here is one of the places I go to get *legal* images:

http://www.fotolia.com/

For a few bucks you can get some great images to spice up your site. A commercial artist friend pointed this site out to me.

If you browse that site you will see a lot of images for sale with copyright claims that are used by others all over the net - probably as copyright violations. Even if the image is used legally on a site, downloading it for free and using it on your own site is a violation.

 

[content]

Every object in the net has an author. Every author is a rightful owner of his or her own content. Capish?
You can use other people hard work to fill in your project, but... Just imagine, time has come and you've got a pretty nice registered mail from copyright's owner or his lawyer. Nothing personal, strictly business - you pay royalties by our price or, believe it or not, you have to pay royalties plus legal expenses. Be ready to big numbers here.
If you think this is IMHO only, try to google "Getty Images". It's their usual way to get low budget PR.

npcomplete, I love fotolia too! Second priority is iStockPhoto.

 

[irving]

You know, copyright issues here in the Philippines is very slow. We do not concentrate on the "internet" problems that much. But just recently because a Filipino made some issue with it. Our government started opening their minds. Finally