[SnowTroll]

Copyrights are pretty serious business. And crediting the author isn't the issue.

Popular misconception about giving credit. It is NOT okay to copy and use an image created or owned by another author, even if you credit the author when you do it, admit to copying the image, and tell people where you got it (except for very rare excepions involving fair use that wouldn't apply to filching existing images and putting them on your own mud's website, for varoius reasons). It is NOT okay to copy and use an image created or owned by another author, even if you don't make any money off of the image. It's even worse for you if you do make money, and/or if you wrongly claim personal authorship of the work, but giving credit to the real author and making strictly non-commercial use of the work doesn't protect you.

If you don't have the copyright owner's permission when you copy their creative work, you're infringing the copyright. If you're caught and someone brings suit, that can potentially be serious money. The reason nobody heavily polices personal websites (like those of hobbyiest mud owners) is because they don't have much money. There's no money in suing somebody who can't pay you. But there are companies out there that use webcrawlers to search the internet and find images being used without permission, that will send you angry letters demanding payment for use of the image, under threat of suit. (They'll also contact your web provider and have your website or various images taken down.) They can win a lawsuit against you, pretty easily, even if you properly credit the author and don't make any money from the image.

Stop stealing from the internet. It's not free to use just because you found it on some website.