If only I'd thought of it first!

letter to Joerg Colberg,
at Conscientious,
because he is,
among other things,
precisely that:

Joerg-
Here's a copy of a comment on kottke.org, in regard to a link to an egregious scam site called "shorpy".
I've been spelinking in the directories of the LoC for years. What this guy's doing is creepy, and lame as all get out.
I'm dumping the whole thing your way because it is most definitely a photography-related issue, and because of your prominent, and well-deserved, position as node-facilitator for things photographic online. Also because I'm real frustrated about it and don't have any other forums for that except kottke's own comment thread which I haven't much faith in.
-
letter to kottke, which ended up in his comment thread because he hasn't replied to an email, yet:
(roy belmont is a nom-de-vieux)
That site, shorpy, that you linked to is pulling photos out of the Library of Congress online catalogs and rebranding them as if they were privately owned, without any attribution. They aren't owned by whoever's running that site, except in the sense that they're owned by all of us, through the agency of the LoC.
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/nclc.01128
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.13316
Every other image I saw there is right out of the parent directories of the LoC's Prints and Photographs Division's Online Catalog, yet it's never mentioned once.
I wonder why?
Maybe because the site owner's an asshole, not to mention greedy, if not treacherously opportunistic.
I've been throwing images from the LoC up online here and there for 4 or 5 years now, but always with attribution and/or direct links, or the expectation that constant readers will know by the image url from whence they come.
The difference is huge and important - right up there with right and wrong and other binary human distinctions.
The danger is the LoC will draw up its wonderful bridges, and a great public resource be withdrawn behind some kind of pay-wall.

Co-opting the public domain is the worst form of theft there is.

I'm sure you were unaware of this when you posted the link, but you're in a good position to do the right thing about it, now that you know.
cheers

http://dirtybeloved.blogspot.com/2007/02/john-muir-1902-inca-punishment-stone.html
http://dirtybeloved.blogspot.com/2007/02/chaplin-detail-no-digital-attribution.html
http://dirtybeloved.blogspot.com/2007/02/mr.html

After the fire was well kindled we repeated the ceremony of the previous day; and more wine was poured over Shelley's dead body than he had consumed during his life. This with the oil and salt made the yellow flames glisten and quiver. The heat from the sun and fire was so intense that the atmosphere was tremulous and wavy. The corpse fell open and the heart was laid bare. The frontal bone of the skull, where it had been struck with the mattock, fell off; and, as the back of the head rested on the red-hot bottom bars of the furnace, the brains literally seethed, bubbled, and boiled as in a cauldron, for a very long time.
Byron could not face this scene, he withdrew to the beach and swam off to the Bolivar. Leigh Hunt remained in the carriage.
The fire was so fierce as to produce a white heat on the iron, and to reduce its contents to grey ashes. The only portions that were not consumed were some fragments of bones, the jaw, and the skull, but what surprised us all, was that the heart remained entire.
In snatching this relic from the fiery furnace, my hand was severely burnt; and had any one seen me do the act I should have been put into quarantine.
After cooling the iron machine in the sea, I collected the human ashes and placed them in a box, which I took on board the Bolivar. Byron and Hunt retraced their steps to their home, and the officers and soldiers returned to their quarters. I liberally rewarded the men for the admirable manner in which they behaved during the two days they had been with us. As I undertook and executed this novel ceremony, I have been thus tediously minute in describing it.

Extracts from Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron
Edward John Trelawny
Arkansas State

Tis a Long Path which Wanders to Desire
-
"Butterflies are also present..."

Doves and Dreams
Walker Art Gallery

Girl Chopping Onions (detail)
Gerrit Dou
ARC

Italian Woman (detail)
Mariano José María Bernardo Fortuny y Carbó
famsf

Man of Sorrows
Attributed to Guido Reni, 1575-1642, Italian
FAC