So… um… yeah… about that…

Well, some of my 2.5 readers may or may not have noticed that my blog has been on private for the past week(ish).

I meant to make it public again sooner, but I needed to cool down first. And then I needed time to make some edits. And then I needed to find time to type an explanation. I finally made it to step 3.

Last week, I found a picture of my baby on another blog. A blog written by someone that I do not know. Let me say that again… A PICTURE! OF MY BABY! POSTED BY SOMEONE I DO NOT KNOW!

And I’ll start by playing Devil’s Advocate and say that the picture was not used in a derogatory way. There was nothing negative written, nor had the picture been edited in anyway. (Thank God!) It was simply re-published under a post titled “Crying Babies”.

But still…A PICTURE! OF MY BABY! POSTED BY SOMEONE I DO NOT KNOW! caused my Mom-Alarm to go off. And I panicked.

And besides the fact that it is A PICTURE! OF MY BABY! POSTED BY SOMEONE I DO NOT KNOW!, I do have that nifty little “Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved” thingy in my side bar. (Which Bartholomew T. Google, PC* told me I don’t even technically need to have.)

So I contacted the blog author via comment (I couldn’t find any contact information). Here is the extent of the conversation:

(After the initial contact, they placed a black “censored” image over the baby’s eyes. MY BABY’S EYES! Which is why in my second comment, I asked for them to please “completely remove” the picture.)

So that’s why my blog has been set to private. I just freaked out. A PICTURE! OF MY BABY! POSTED BY SOMEONE I DO NOT KNOW! could kinda make a mom do that. Or maybe it’s just me.

But either way, it gave me a huge wake-up call. I know the internet is a dangerous place and that by posting pictures of my kids, there was a chance someone could steal them. And you would think that would have been enough of a deterrent for someone as paranoid and overly-suspicious as I am. But I was all “MY corner of the internet wouldn’t do that! MY corner of the internet is all puppies and kitties and rainbows and unicorns!” I was wrong.

And again, I am extremely grateful that A PICTURE! OF MY BABY! POSTED BY SOMEONE I DO NOT KNOW! was not used in a damaging or perverted manner. But I’m not willing to take the chance of that happening next time someone uses a picture of my children. So all posts with their pictures have been set to ‘private’. But I’m still wondering if I’m not too late…

I’m also wondering if I’m not some kind of hypocrite. I never used pictures other bloggers have taken, especially not pictures of their children. But I have used images that were not my own (products, book covers, logos, graphics, celebrities) on my blog. What is the ‘ethically correct’ thing to do when it comes to those things? I don’t try to pass them off as my own, and I always provide a link to the original source of the image. And if I was contacted and asked to remove an image, I would certainly do so immediately, no questions asked. And apologize for my indiscretion. Is that enough? Certainly as a mom, there is a huge difference between someone else using a picture of your child and using a product image from a company website. But legally… morally… is there any difference? I don’t know.

I do know that there was A PICTURE! OF MY BABY! POSTED BY SOMEONE I DO NOT KNOW! and it scared the shit out of me.

*Legal Disclaimer: Bartholomew T. Google, PC is not an actual attorney and is not licensed to practice law anywhere in the United States. Take his legal advicce at your own risk.