Just the [EN] version of the latest IMA Newsflash; the French & German versions are be found here :- www.ipernity.com/blog/team/4693794

Dear members and friends of ipernity!

Since the last newsflash on 26 January 2018 the topics of copyright and intellectual property policies have arisen. As a friendly reminder to all, based on Section 6 of the Terms of Service (TOS), ima/ipernity honors copyright, trademark, and intellectual property protection requirements as stipulated under French law and other intellectual property laws.

To avoid innocent mistakes or potential misunderstandings we ask that going forward, everyone simply provide attribution even when public domain, Creative Commons (CC) license images (from sites such as Pixabay, Flickr, Wikipedia), and commercial use license images (purchased from sites such as Shutterstock) are used even though from a legal standpoint these images can be freely used or shared without attribution.

This is especially important with regard to derivative works that often utilize some borrowed elements since they fall within a gray area of copyright/intellectual property laws because of subjective interpretations of how much processing or editing are necessary to create new works.

In addition, for your protection, we also ask that everyone using borrowed images and/or wallpapers double check the originating site’s (TOS) since sometimes attribution alone may not be sufficient. Some sites like Shutterstock require one to purchase images to be used in derivative works or for other purposes while others such as DeviantArt.com require one to receive “express, written consent” from the artist before using a portion or all of their work for any purpose.

A few seconds of due diligence can go a long way in avoiding personal embarrassment, innocent mistakes, and potential misunderstandings. It can also protect the individual as well as ima/ipernity, groups, admins and the member community from damaging legal awards and/or reputational harm!

Your ima team