A friend of mine started up his own website recently and uses panorama's as part of the logo. He was told by someone that all photos posted here were public domain hence not having to ask permission to use people's pictures as logos for different pages. But at the bottom of SP it says "All Rights Reserved". So are these rights reserved for the owners of the site? Or owners of people's content? Obviously the courteous thing to do is to ask people for permission which I usually do when hosting pictures outside of SummitPost on my SP pages.

I am guilty of doing it with non-logo's as seen here. I do however link directly to the page which still gives the author credit. Plus the page has no direct "author" (or at least it will coming up considering that it's a wiki). But perhaps I'm doing poor form as well?

I would like to get to the bottom of this issue. Opinions and advice would go appreciated.

P.S. I do not upload pictures that are not mine without permission for the author(s).

I was trying to get two main questions addressed. The first one jfrishmanIII answered well. But the second one is still not answered. (the one about me using pictures from SP that link directly to the post that has the author name in it)

Now obviously I can use critical thinking on this situation which will state that some folks might not want me to do this. But if that were absolute, then we would have copy right issues here on SummitPost taking place all the time! (posting pictures in the forums, map use, ect.) Typically I respect Topo copy right laws. But in threads like "Dangerous Lol Cats" I'm willing to bet most folks did not ask those authors to use the pictures.

@ Larry. This is not a dumb thread. Even if I was not wondering, there are folks out there that are or simply do not know.

When you say hotlinks, does this include things like this? (an image using the img tag as opposed to a link using html)

Thanks Mr. Chad. Case solved.

Regarding Paddles: It's a cute picture. It's good quality, great lighting. I even like the concept of it (Just like Steph posting Thunder Bill). I was a bit jealous that it got 21 Votes. But it all boils down to not taking voting so seriously.