Use of Pictures

We wrote the text below when the website was still copyrighted, and we thought fair use would be a good way to use pictures. Unfortunately, this did not work at all. So we have fundamentally changed our opinion on some things. We have put the whole website, which means all content, texts as well as pictures, under Public Domain (CC-0) licence. In other words, anyone can copy anything in whole or in part without crediting showcaves.com as the author. We will not ask you to be polite any more because obviously its futile. Life has become much easier.

We get requests for the use of pictures now and then. It's a lot of work to write the same again and again, so here is the simple explanation about the use of pictures from showcaves.com.

If the photographer is given, the picture is copyrighted by the respective photographer. You have to ask him directly. If you send the request to us, we will forward it to the photographer, if possible. We will not give you any contact details and do not guarantee that he will answer.
If the images are not marked with a copyright notice, you can use them. We have realized the futility of enforcing copyrights as a private person in times of the internet. For this reason, the entire website is public domain. This applies to images and texts, with above exceptions.
If you need any support, be it a higher resolution, info on the image, and so on, you have to pay for the effort. Payment in advance, we had several cases where people were not willing to pay afterwards. Then, we will do our best to help you. So again: the images are in the public domain, our time is not.
In the Eurozone you can transfer the money without any problems. And we offer payment with PayPal. We do not offer payment by credit card.
As this is not a commercial but a private website, we are not liable for VAT. We also do not issue invoices. If you pay something, you can get a receipt.
We try to answer every enquiry immediately. However, it may take a few hours to a few days. We have no guaranteed response time, and if we are on holiday, it may take a few weeks.