Strobist Terms of Service

EDITOR'S NOTE: These terms of service are occasionally updated. You can read the latest version by clicking on the "TOS" link at the bottom of any page.
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First of all, thanks for caring enough to click through to read this. Right away, that separates you from the automated scumbot content scrapers that I have to go after nearly every day.

Strobist is the product of countless hours of hard work and it is very important to me that I protect the value of the original content. Everything you see on Strobist is copyright David Hobby in the year that it was first published. (In the case of third-party contributors, they retain the copyright.) That does not mean that you cannot use material from the site, only that there are a couple of rules.

If you want to link to the articles, that's cool. It's what makes the blog world spin. Feel free to post brief abstracts of the original posts -- the pithier the better. Please limit your verbatim "excerpts" to two or three paragraphs at the most. A prominent link to the original source is required, lest we confuse anyone about the source of the content.

Wholesale cut-and-paste reproductions of entire posts are strictly prohibited and will taken very seriously. That is copyright infringement, plain and simple. This blog is my entire livelihood, and if you are going to jeopardize my family's income, I will come after you.

My preference is to come after infringers (especially the automated, made-for-Adsense scraper guys) with a two-by-four. But I have been told that the lawyers are more civilized (a matter of opinion, to be sure) and, ultimately, far more rewarding. Rest assured that we do file the appropriate forms, which means that infringements can be very expensive -- as in punitive damages and legal fees. (You really do not want to know.)

I very much appreciate the general idea of foreign-language Strobist sites, and it is something that I am looking into. We already have a Spanish language site here and an Italian translation group here.

While the idea is cool, the implementation of 30 disparate sites grabbing my content and translating it with no structure or control would be be problematic, to say the least. Therefore, translations of the site into other languages require prior written approval. Additionally, they are only permitted within the framework of a Flickr group, or on a website that I control.

Specifically prohibited are full translations on separate websites or blogs, the most egregious of which seek to confuse people with the use of the word "Strobist" in the URL and/or design schemes that mimic those of the original site. I am generally a nice guy, but if you caught me in your living room walking out with your stereo you might be a little miffed, too.

It's a very easy thing to get a website or blog shut down (and the content deleted) by demonstrating to the ISP and/or host that one of their publishers is flagrantly infringing copyright. (If they do not shut you down, they are liable, too.) Please don't make me do that. And if you are scraping me with a mindless MFA-type site, you go to the front of the line.

So, long story short, just because the site is free does not mean that the content is free for the taking. Thanks for understanding, and sorry to be a buzzkill.


-David Hobby