[Carl/NewsMax]

Again, NewsMax credits FR more than any other commericial news source does. I wish the sources that routinely steal stuff from my column were half as respectful when it comes to giving credit as NewsMax is.

But in this case, there's one important detail you seem to be deliberately overlooking. It was against the law to reprint that photo without permission from Corbis. Whoever did so on FR, they did it ILLEGALLY.

If you would have preferred I had credited FR with theft of intellectual property - fine. But I suspect those who own and run this Web site wouldn't have appreciated the lawsuit such crediting might have invited.

I suspect the Washington Times was trying to do FR the same favor by alluding to the fact that the photo had also turned up elsewhere on the Internet - without identifying FR by name.

For the record, NewsMax said it had "obtained" the photo, not that it had unearthed it. And the Times said only that NewsMax had published it, not that it had done so exclusively.

[Spiff]

Carl,

Again you miss my point.

Suffice it to say, you should have said something similar to: "NewsMax obtained the photo which was unearthed by the sleuths at the conservative FreeRepublic.com web site."

It is not all that important who gets the credit. I don't want to make a big deal out of this or to disparage what NewsMax does. I just felt that credit was not properly attributed.

[Spiff]

Oh, and I believe posting the photo falls under fair use as does the posting of articles and excerpts of articles. The photo was posted as a "Hey, look what I dug up over a Corbis" kind of thing.

NewsMax, on the other hand, is a commercial enterprise which makes money through various means which all center around the content it provides. Posting it or printing it there would not fall under fair use.

Corbis should actually thank FR for unearthing it and publicizing it sufficiently that at least one publisher paid full price to use it.

I understand your point and see that you may have thought you were watching FR's back. I just disagree that it had to be done the way you did it.

I still like NewsMax and I hope NewsMax still likes FR. This is not a big deal but just a minor disagreement about how you handled this and I'm just a lone FReeper to which you happened to reply.