RE: Does Steemit count as commercial usage of content?
As an artist (among other things) on Steemit, I think that I can answer a few of the questions you have @cryptosharon!
The image for this post is from Pixabay! I've seen it before and it is cc0 (Creative Commons free for commercial use—no attribution). I used to cite these, then went to not doing it. Now I cite my image no matter what (to avoid any type of questioning!)
I've been accused one time of possibly not citing an image, but I did make it from scratch myself and was able to clear it.
I see Steemit as commercial use, because we are getting paid for the content that we present. Cryptocurrency is still currency. But don't fret. I was able to reverse image search the pupper photo and it's actually easy to do!
Any image where you can't find the source, upload it to tineye.com and they will tell you everywhere it was uploaded! Always use the first result for "Best Match" and you are good to go!
In this post I used a bunch of memes and other image content, and cited it all at the bottom of the post. The important thing to remember is that the images (video, pictures) should not be the main focus/ the majority of your content.
To my understanding as long as you are not trying to pass something off as yours when it's not, you are clear <3
Hope this helps!
@shello
The best match is from Weheart it, which is like Pinterest. People share unattributed images. I usually go for "biggest image", but that one is from Reddit and it's not attributed either. The original is probably an unknown Japanese Instagrammer.
D: That is one of my fears and one of the things I dislike about the current conventions on Steemit. Even if the image is CC0 or yours, people accuse you of not "properly" attributing it, while the license actually requires to attribution.
A friend of mine used to do this and tried to get into Qurator. They told him that he was not attributing his images... I think that the moderator was a bit lazy and didn't read the signature. Ever since that happened, he uses H1 titles and exclamation marks to all image attributions to spite that moderator hahahaha
Hmm, I usually see the money as a secondary thing, like an indirect effect of our participation. But it could also be said that our mere participation in the blockchain is commercial activity. 🤔
What I've gathered from your reply is that a lot of people suck xDDD Your friend is hilarious though, although it might feel nice to release anger even passively, doing this type of behavior isn't going to help their situation lmao.
It does work on a lot of images, but many people aren't inclined as much as Steemit to attribute to works, even when they're ours and this sucks sometimes.
The government will accuse a person of tax evasion though as any services that we receive income for is considered a wage. Cryptocurrency is still pretty new though, in some cases it's treated as money, and in others as property.
Right now, I see cryptocurrencies as trading tools, not either just property or money. I can't buy anything with it outside of Steem, for example, so I need to sell my cryptocurrency to get another currency that people want.
It's like a thing we hold to resell later, to hold in here, on Steemit, as stocks, but SBD is what I use the most to pay for bots, so I think that it is the cryptocurrency with the biggest "currency" value right now for me. The others are similar to stocks in day trading that I buy and resell later when the value is higher.
And yeap, people suck and it's hard to do things right when people overcorrect. I don't like having to say "I took this from Pixabay" because Pixabay is CC0. But oh well, people like to be able to confirm the origin of things without having to reverse image search every time they look for curations. Perhaps we can see it as making curators' lives easier.
I exchange my SBD for other coins that I hold, and sometimes I cash it out into USD. Looking at cryptocurrency as a tool is still leagues above giving meaning to paper! Bots are nice and all, but I want everyone to visit my blog to be made aware that you can still succeed without buying them. In a sense helping out newer users not feel pressured, but inspired to work more on their blogs.
It is a shame that we still need to attribute our cc0 images to thwart further investigation, but as you said—it may actually be good to help curators get to more posts!