Writing “disclaimer” does not remove your responsibility to not acknowledge the source.

It doesn’t give you permission to steal just because you acknowledge that you’re stealing. 

That’s like a bank robber wearing a sign saying “Disclaimer: This money doesn’t belong to me.” That doesn’t change anything. 

Purpose of This Blog;

This blog was created for the purpose of educating people on sourcing everything that they post that does not belong to them and how to do so. 

I have in the past gotten messages questioning and accusing me of being a hypocrite for people removing a persons source that goes back to their blog and adding this one instead. People, my self included, only do this when there is NO acknowledgement back to the owner of the photo. Sourcing back to this is simply a way to promote this blog so that more people see it and hopefully stop stealing. This doesn’t promote my own personal blog in anyway. I am not doing this for selfish reasons. I’m doing this to educate. 

For those of you who are kind enough to switch the source to this, please do not do it regularly. Only do it occasionally, I would much prefer that you simply ignore and don’t touch unsourced things at all. Letting them die off and stopping any further promotion of the thief, as some themes have code to show the original poster. 

For those of you who wish to help promote this blog, there are quiet a few ways to help, and I am truly grateful for any and all help given. The ways I would suggest in helping are, reblogging one of the posts on this blog, posting a link to this blog, adding a permeant link onto your blog, or anything else that may help. Again, thank you for anything and everything that helps.

Why You Should Source;

When posting another persons Photo, Video, Words, ect, you are taking their possession. You didn’t think of that, you didn’t work to create that, you didn’t, you didn’t, you didn’t. If you take it and claim it as your own you are stealing from them. By not putting an acknowledgement or way back to them, you are saying that you are the owner. That is stealing.

Then of course I get the argument about “Deserving credit for finding it and posting it” or “How would I find people who posted it here” ect. I want to make this very clear. I did NOT say that you can’t add a way back to you. All I am saying is you MUST put a way back to the owner. By all means add a way back to your self as well. As long as you acknowledge that it belongs to this other person it’s all good.

This also leads to the problem of people reposting things they find on tumblr, with or with out sources is irrelevant. By the same logic that you have to source the photographer/owner, you also need to source who you got it from. Which is exactly why there is a *Reblog* option that does all the work for you.  Stop trying to get followers by undercutting others.

Another issue that tends to come up is, “Why would I source Google” “Why would I source WeHeartIt, it isn’t the owner anyways” ect ect ect. To put it simply: Stealing from a thief is still stealing, unless you give it back to the rightful owner.  I would highly recommend you use creditable sources to find pictures/videos/ect to post. For photos one of the best ones is Flickr, which is what I personally use the most. There is also 500px, and many others. They are many sites you can find creditable photographs on, and they have tons of photos. There really isn’t any good excuse not to use them.

Rebloging unsourced photos is just as bad as posting them. You are simply giving the thief credit and more chance of profiting off the theft. Be it advertisements on their blog, or simply gaining followers.

(Source: SourceThePhotographer)

I just wanted to add this;

Okay so you decide to post a picture without a source,

If I’m following the same logic you are, why should I just not steal it and repost it my self instead of reblogging?

Why follow someone who doesn’t source?

If you’re willing to reblog stolen pictures, why don’t you just steal the picture instead of reblogging it?

It literally shows the exact same amount of respect, if not more, than the first poster gave to the photographer… More because at least you didn’t steal it from the true owner..

Ways To Source;

Use one or more of these methods.

• Setting the Source Link to go to the Photographer/Photo page
• Setting the Click-Through Link to go to the Photographer/Photo page
• Putting a Link to the Photographer/Photo page in the Text portion of the post.

You can still have one going back to your blog, as long as you have one for the photographer/photo page.

Note: People very often erase the text portion, so I would highly suggest using one of the first two.

Download Tumblr Savoir to “Black List” all offenders so you never see there stolen pictures again.

Download Link (other versions for non chrome are linked on site):

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oefddkjnflmjbclpnnoegglmmdfkidip