How to Borrow: Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

Simply copying anyone's writing, or stealing pics they have edited, and scanned, or stealing other files is unacceptable. Yes, you do not own the copyrights on Sailormoon material, but many people have spent hours, days, even weeks researching, scanning, editing and even investing money to work on their sites. To have someone come along and just copy and paste someone else's hard work on to their page without asking is very inconsiderate and just plain lazy.

However, most page creators are pretty good about letting people take things from their sites. On some sites you don't have to worry and you can just take it. These include web sites and public FTP sites which allow people to take anything they want. Usually, it will be marked somewhere on the site if the files are free for the taking, so take a look around to see what each site says about borrowing pics and material if your interested in something.

If you don't find anything written down about borrowing material, then you should always ask before taking anything. Also many pages will ask you not to steal, but if you email them to ask if you can "borrow" something, they will usually let you take the pics and they won't give you any trouble. Below are some steps you should follow when taking items from others.

• Email and ask the person if you can take something from their site.
  Tell them exactly what it is you want to take. (The name of the pic, etc.)
  
  
• If they reply with a "no", do not take anything!
  However, if they reply with "yes", take only what you asked for. If you want more material from them later you have to ask again for that material. Don't assume if you got approval once that you will get it again. There might be certain things the owner of the other page doesn't mind giving out, but there might be other parts they do mind.
  
  
• If they make any special requests, carry these requests out only if the requests are reasonable. Usually they will simply ask for a link to their page on yours, something you should have no problem with. However, if you feel any requests they make are unreasonable, then don't take the material from them. Go looking somewhere else.
  
  
• Give the person credit somewhere on your page.
  The best place is somewhere on the page you used the material. Alternative choices would be on a special credits page or on the bottom of your index page. Any credit you give them should include a link to their page. Note: simply making the pic a link back to the site you borrowed it from is not an acceptable form of credit. This is for two reasons, one many won't know the pic hides a link to where you really got it and two it's just plain wrong and stupid to direct link or link back. (Keep reading to see why.)
  
  
• Never ever direct link files from the other person's site.
  Copy them on to your hard drive and then FTP them to your own site. It's lazy, and causes the other person's page to slow from the extra resources your page is eating up. Plus, if you don't do this it could cause some major headaches for you down the road. If the other site removes the file your using for any reason you suddenly end up with a broken link on your page. Also if the other owner gets angry at someone else or even you, they can replace the file with something else using same file name. You just gave someone the easiest way in the world to hack your page.