It's funny to think why most corporations, businesses and brands now post images to Facebook- they post images of their products to spread their brand message, and to encourage viral images. Why are you fighting the use of images by a planet who might be interested in what your assets are? I work for a Fortune 100 corporation, and we have a social media department charged with posting and reposting images - it what others are tying to achieve, and we are fighting such access. Sure, a few images show up up Etsy and Ebay, but these far outway the benefits of engagement in a world where newspapers and magazines no longer exist. I think back to 6 months ago, when this same group argued about a Wall Street Journal writer asking for some advice. DO you have any idea what that sort of exposure would cost any other brand or org? One mention of my blog in a New York Times article will result in 100,000 hits. The same goes for any social site. The single goal is to get as many copies of your image reposes on other sites, blogs and peoples Pinterest pages. These numbers are precious. Any data tracking site can tell me if my image of a Morea has been reposted or bookmarked, even added to someones Pinterst page. It's why I am now in the top ten gardening blogs world wide. These numbers are tracked (I track my reposts daily if not hourly with my blog), and it's how one gains clout and notoriety in the digital space. And here is the kicker - - if someone in Bulgaria searches for a rare tulipa? Most likely a PBS image will appear in first 5 images - believe me, a major corporation would pay a great sum of money for this sort of exposure. If I was hired as a consultant by PBS, I would say that this is your greatest asset. Any gardening magazine, plant society - even botanic garden would pay for such placement. It's a little ironic that so many within the group want to achieve the opposite, to place firewalls up, to call reuse of images plagiarism. At my day job( at Hasbro), we had an issue a year and a half ago - where an animated TV series based on one of our intellectual properties suddenly became popular - viral even. Fans started reusing our images without our permission world wide, and our legal department had a hay day trying to dscourage unauthorized use. This also happened with Harry Potter and Warner Brothers sues hundreds of fans who started using unauthorized images on their blogs, their websites, and in publications. But eventually, both our legal department and that of Warner Brothers could not control the use of images, and creatively took another stance - that of encouraging such use. These two cases are now used by progressive business schools as examples of how the internet has changes how we control our intellectual property. The missed opportunity? It's not noticing that suddenly you have an audience. And when an audience loves what you have, you have engagement. There are few, too few people today who are developing an interest in bulbs. For many reasons, the reasons why people garden has changed. But at the same time, something special is happening - people are reposting images of bulbs on their Pinterest boards, people are discovering PBS images on their Google searches. I think that one discussion here, should be more about - how can we engage MORE people to become engaged rather than discourage them. And then, a second discussion should be - how to tier out engagement - as only a few of these curious gawkers really want to engage as deeply as the 50 or so members who chat here. The critical fact is that even if a young person searches and discovers a rare bulb, this baseline interest is what may spark a deeper engagement in the future - it's entry level engagement. Today, a Google search may be the only place where a young person may see what we have. Their laptop is their library. The Internet is how they are discovering possible future interests. If they repost to a blog or their Pinterest page "cool check out this Tulip", then they may become a future member once they learn more. On 1/21/13 11:12 PM, "Judy Glattstein" <jgglatt@gmail.com> wrote: > I am one of those who still place those annoying copyright lines in images I > put on my website. The images, complete with copyright notice, then appear on > websites arou > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/