Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
III
Using an Image from the Web in Your Post
Many bloggers don't know that you can use any image, from anywhere in the Web, in your blog,
without
downloading it to your computer and uploading it to the Media Library first. WordPress
makes this easy, as we describe here.
When your blog—or any other web page—displays an image, the image doesn't have to be on the
same server as the text and layout information in the actual HTML file that makes up the web
page. In fact, it very often isn't.
The HTML file contains only text. The image is brought into the displayed web page (or blog post-
ing) by a pointer to the location of the image file, which can be anywhere on the Web.
The pointer looks like this:
<IMG HREF= “www.mygreatsite.com/bigfatimage.jpg”></IMG>
The file is stored at a web URL, just like a web address except that it ends in the name of the spe-
cific image file that's desired. The
</IMG>
end tag is needed for XHTML, as used by WordPress.
However, the fact that you
can
do this doesn't necessarily mean you
should
do it. The first problem
is copyright, as described earlier in this chapter in the “Copyright and Media Types” section.
The second problem has to do with bandwidth. If you include a picture hosted on another site in
your blog,
the other site
has to pay for the bandwidth used to download it.
Frankly, these days, the charges to the other side are unlikely to be very high, or even noticeable,
unless they have a little-used site and you have a very frequently visited one. However, there is still
a cost involved, as well as common courtesy in not foisting
charges on other people.
So you actually save other people money if you take an image
from their site, download it to your computer, and upload it to
WordPress, rather than if you use their image directly from their
site.
However, it can also be nice to go ahead and link to the image on
the other site, and include an acknowledgement of the loan in the
form of a link to the original site that might generate traffic to the
host. If, like most sites, they want traffic, this is a good thing.
On balance, though, it's probably best to include an image from
the Web in your site only if you control the source (meaning
you're paying for the hosting anyway), or if you're sure you have
permission. This is the case on sites such as Flickr, which
encourages you to link to their images, and includes code for
hosting their images on your site. (You don't need the code, but
it's a sign that Flickr is interested in having their images used on
other sites.)
Follow these steps to include an image from a website in
your post:
caution
Images hosted on other people's
sites can be moved or removed.
To be sure that the image will
never leave the spot you've
linked to, bring it into
WordPress.
tip
Flickr uses something called
Creative Commons Licensing to
allow people who post images to
explicitly grant rights to use
them to a wide variety of people.
For more information, check
out www.flickr.com/
creativecommons/.
