"3ncryptabl3_lick, you are wrong! Following your premise, a printed book that someone buys is "in the public domain" and can therefore be used as if uncopyrighted. Incorrect. It is still copyrighted as you and your lawyer would soon find out if you provided the full text on a website or quoted parts without proper attributions."

Actually, you're both right to a degree. True your work doesn't become "public domain" but intellectual property displayed on the internet and the right to use them is still in infancy with regard to the public's knowledge of the law.
I doubt you'd find anyone who would see nothing wrong with transfering an entire book to his website but put up a graphic and next thing you know it's all over the net. It's simply not something that people are used to dealing with yet. Anyone can have a website for practically nothing and the first thing they do is put every flashing thing on it they can find because it's so easy.

I highly recommend placing distinct copyright wording over your entire image though when you publish them online in your galleries. Thank you Ravnheart for the psd file. I was at a community sidewalk "faire" sort of thing and a woman had boxes with tiles on the lids with artwork that I had seen elsewhere and I knew wasn't hers. I asked someone about them and she did have them put on the lids herself. It wouldn't surprise me if a few of the images had been from galleries like here at R'osity. A company at a very large and well known trade show in Las Vegas was describing where they got their images for their products and really stumbled around the explaination when I delved into the "do you have the copyright" question. I had such a hunch they were infringing I refused to deal with them. And just like the guy papyes mentioned, he got his material off the net and it's not like he or the woman I saw have a web host to keep them shut down. Sad but true. At least the web infringers are fairly easy to stop.

...... Kendra