Giving Credit/Netiquette I have been surfing the web for almost 10 years now. When I first started making webpages I had no idea what I was doing. I was a newbie, just like we all are when we first start creating websites. After I figured out that I needed a web server to host my page, I started to look for some graphics to put on my site. I found a site that had some nice graphics that I liked. That graphics site, and most of the graphic sites on the web, have graphics that you can use which are called "linkware". These graphics are NOT free, they are free for a LINK. What this basically means is that if you use the artist's graphics on your site, you have to use one of their logos with a link back to them or give them a text link. If you don't know how to do this, please email me and I will explain it to you. It is so important to give credit because the artists work very hard creating beautiful graphics for our sites. Some of these take many hours to do and some are totally original, made up in the artist's imagination and are copyrighted. They are very proud of their work and want other people to be able to find their sites so they can use the graphics too. How would you feel if you were a graphic artist and made graphics for people to use, but they didn't give you credit for your hard work? I don't think you would feel too good. A lot of the graphic artists have removed their sites from the web because they are tired of not getting the full credit that they deserve. This, in turn, affects us because one day we might not be able to use "linkware" graphics, we might have to pay for them. Please always give credit at the bottom of the page that you have that particular artist's graphics on. Do not put all the artist's logos on a separate page called "graphic links". Each logo MUST be located on the same page as the graphics you are using are on. Do NOT steal them! And yes it is stealing because they do not belong to you, you are only borrowing them. Also, do not alter them in any way by either changing the color or size unless you have the artist's permission first. You say to yourselt well it's on the Internet so it's Public Domain. Wrong! Nothing is public domain, everything belongs to someone. The only way it would be public domain is if the artist specifically says so, which I doubt he/she would because everyone likes to get credit for their hard work. Please, please, please always give credit where credit is due. I cannot stress this enough. It doesn't take much time to put the artist's logo at the bottom of each page, and it is the RIGHT thing to do. Another taboo is linking to other people's servers. What this basically means is when you link your graphics to the artist's servers or anyone else's server for that matter, instead of saving them to your hard drive and then uploading them to the server that you use, you link them to their server. Most free webservers such as Geocities and Tripod give you 11 megs of webspace which is a ton of space. Some webservers give you even more. Graphic artist's get a lot of hits to their sites each day. Some of the artists have to pay everytime their site gets over a certain number of hits and if you link to their server, you are stealing bandwidth. Please click on the logos below to learn more about this.
If you link your graphics to their servers, you might find that one day you will have broken images on your page because the artists move their graphics around a lot. Please do the right thing and "think before you link" and always give credit where credit is due. Thanks.
  
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