I found a site that does offeres materials that don't sound quite right to me. I was looking around for on-line sources of some nice small hopefully tileable images that can be used as texture elements. I am not really searching for anything that I need at the moment, I was just looking around for resources to bookmark. I found one site that has a nice collection, although I have seen some of the images else where already. The the site also has images for use as backgrounds on desktops. Some of those are nice for backgrounds for 3D CGI and 2D work too. All free for use with in the terms of the license for the particular image..
The problem is that they also have a collection of pictures for use as desktop backgrounds that are of well known celebraties, some normal dress, some scantly dressed and some nude. The photography look professional, but the images (at least one) contain artifacts from image compression and handling. They are all tagged as public domain! Now this does not sound right to me.
I can see a celebrity releasing a photograph for use as a publicity item. Or perhaps even for free reuse, within terms of a license. I can see the same for a photographer who owns the copyright of the photograph. But it seems wrong to see those photographs being listed as Public Domain.
Is it true that such photos have been officialy released as public domain works, or does it meant that the images have been floating around the net and some people assume that they are public domain and the operators of that site are being careless or worse?
That is why I did post about it in the interesting links forum. I have also chosen to not use the texture elements from the site since if the celeb pix are not legal then it puts doubt in my mind reguarding the legality of other items at that site.
Today I saw that same site being listed at RDNA in the free community gifts forum. So, could it be possible that I am wrong in my concern about that site?
Pangor