Recently, a Nevada photographer found that social networking privacy settings may not seem so cool. She found a photograph of hers she had posted to her profile used in an ad by a sunglasses company she had never heard of. Although this may seem like blatant infringement (as she thought), whether it is may depend on permissions you give to third parties without even knowing it.

The web has been abuzz recently about this issue (a popular example being a husband whose wife’s picture popped up for a dating site ad), and the sites and advertisers have been pointing the fingers at each other. Regardless, artists should be particularly mindful of the risks and benefits posting pictures may create—and that means clicking on and actually reading those links at the top or the bottom of home page entitled "Privacy" or "Settings" or "Terms of Use."

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