I talked a briefly about copyright issues in my talk at A Reconstructed Visitable Past: Recreated Period Attire at Heritage Sites. Only briefly because, well, to be frank, I could talk about it for hours...if not days....and if you're trying to talk about it with museum folk who are highly protective of their collections and the unclear copyright laws...it just is a bajillion times worse.
So my brief talk was basically: Yes. There is copyright infringement. Yes. It is getting better. Yes. We use images from your website. BUT if we're good and responsible bloggers, we cite where the image came from and even link back to the original source. What does this mean? Well, Museums, this means you're getting tons of traffic and tonsssss of free marketing from blogs. It's true. I have the statistics.
48% of you visit a new website every time a blogger writes about it. (Another 48% were 'Sometimes)
86% have discovered new museums through blogs. (The nevers is a funny story I'll write about later).
94% are influenced/have used blogs to decide whether or not to make a purchase.
38% of you have had a case of the impulse buys after reading a blog.
What does this mean? It means we have influence, we have a role.
With this influence comes responsibility. There are popular blogs and there are not so popular blogs on the internet. The issue of copyright is starting to come to a head, I've addressed it, American Duchess has written about it, and Mode Historique just did a great post that refers to copyright. MH's post this morning got me thinking about a way to promote proper citation of sources in order to encourage bloggers to cite their images, their quotes, and their research. Not only would this be good practice in general, but it also will let any museums who might be checking out the blogs to see what we're doing, saying, using, referencing, etc, that we're legit.
...We are fairly legit...aren't we?
Too legit to quit?
...sorry.
In a fit of mildly pathetic creativity (and a little lesson in Photoshop Elements) I created a little badge/picture thingy for us (if you wanna) to put on your blogs to promote resource citation.
...is that like...super nerdy of me?
Anyways, here it is in all its silly glory:
Ok. Ok. I know it's a bit cheesy. I didn't want to be preachy, and I wanted it to be cute and a little fun. My photoshop isn't that brillz, I'm not a graphic designer at all. I just piddled until I thought it was acceptable.
If you can design a better one, share it! Or take this one and add it to the side of your blog (if you wanna).
And finally, if you think this is a dumb idea, have a better idea, etc feel free to comment and tell me. I just thought this might be a relatively fun/nice/funny way of promoting citing our resources for our blog. It benefits everyone. Can you feel the citation love? Ffffffeeeeeeeeeeeelllll iiiiiitttttt.
(Sorry no sewing posts, I haven't done anything with my Mrs. C jacket since my last post. I was too busy being pissy about The Three Musketeers.)
<3 <3