Bottom line: Attribution is great. Permission is better. (Especially in the case of an opinion piece.) End of the day, not a big deal. But thanks for considering my opinions on the matter either way. It’s appreciated.

That said, it’s my researched understanding that screenshots of websites are technically permissible when it comes to relevant news & criticism, both of which are called out in exclusions to copyright. For instance, Wikipedia can use this partial screenshot of the BBC’s home page, which is copyrighted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_News_Online. See their statement explaining their usage.

But it’s difficult, especially when the screenshot contains photos by a third party.

In this case, I agree that anyone would be hard-pressed to tell the image we used was a detail from Rione’s site and not a copy of your photo, so better to err on the side of the photographer.

The photograph was originally credited to RioneXIII and that’s fine. And perhaps if the article was a glowing review I might not have said anything. But that’s my decision to make as both the photographer and the person running the website. I suppose that’s a little jerky on my part, but until online publications start hiring photographers, that’s how I’m going to play it.

It’s just a blog post, and really, it’s not that big of a deal at all. And I’m a designer first, so I don’t make my living solely off photography—but I have plenty of friends who do. Online publications seem to have lost all respect for the work these people do.

Just ask first, that’s all I’m saying.

I don’t think it’s losing business to tell someone who shows up without a reservation that they may have to wait 5 minutes to get seats together because another patron is finishing his meal.

It’s not a hard and fast line, when it’s okay to ask someone to scoot over, but it is a request of a guest, so I would recommend being chary with it–especially at a new restaurant hoping to establish a clientele.

So, options might have been: Hostess privately inquires with guest, instead of bringing the couple along with, so guest has the chance to say, you know, I’ll be done in 5. Or, hostess says, “I would be so grateful, can I offer you [glass of wine, coffee] for your trouble?” Most likely it will be waved off, but if not, the ruffled guest will likely be mollified.