I can’t
post someone else’s picture without their permission, right? Even if I
am saying nice things about it and linking back to their original post?
I know it’s tempting to just post the pictures–especially because of the language barrier and, therefore, the difficulty in asking permission and because you’re saying nice things. Unfortunately, this is still unacceptable.
The best way around this is to write interesting and gracious prose about their art (because let’s face it: bento is art) and encourage your readers to visit their site and view their pictures. It is possible that the blog you link to will have a stat counter that shows where the increased traffic is coming from and they may contact you.
You can also try to send them an e-mail. The blog owner may very well speak English as a second language.
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And now I’m curious about these fascinating pictures. I don’t even know what bentos are, but I feel I must see them.
Bentos are boxed lunches that many mothers/fathers in Japan pack for their little ones. They go to great lengths to make the food appealing, to the point of creating cartoons with food. It’s really amazing.
Thanks for the answer. Good to know my gut instinct was right. :0)
I had to consider this issue myself and I don’t think it violates copyright to post a short excerpt — this applies to images as well.
I found this copyright info through many sources, including:
http://w2.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-ip.php
(Electronic Frontier Foundation, Bloggers’ FAQs regarding Intellectual Property)
I love finding great artwork online and posting a teaser image of the art to get people to visit the artist’s site to look through the full gallery or portfolio. Under the copyright guidelines, this a review, which then allows me to incorporate short ‘quotes’ of the reviewed work as fair use.
I don’t know the details of your situation (how many different sites and images on each site), but it seems like a similar review/small excerpt of these bento box sites would be considered fair use.