Having had a military website for some time, I eventually came to a point where I ran into the need to find more information/images to go along with something I had written.

I can't recall the exact percentage, but lets say that 90% of the site was mine, and about 10% or less was copyrighted stuff-text and/or images that I had asked for permission to use.

On one occassion, I had researched my granddad's time during an Army bootcamp in Camp Dodge, Iowa. Although I had quite a bit of information, text, some images etc., I wanted to expand the storyline and add some more relevant information.

Perhaps the most rewarding part of asking someone if you could use their copyrighted material-text and/or images was the willingness of people to let you actually use their material.

I would start off, researching and recording the exact text and information I wanted to use, where it was located on their site and be respectful in asking for permissions. I added the reason I wanted to use their material, gave them the URL of my site and told them exactly how and why I wanted to use it. As an incentive, I would offer to link back to their site, and put a copyright notice on any materials used, reflecting their permission.

The exact numbers are fuzzy, but probably out of 25-30 requests, I can only recall being denied once or twice.

In one particular instance, I was declined permissions, because my site was on a free web host and the webmaster didn't like the banner ads on smoking that they displayed. A year later, I went to a paid host, and sent another request, which was granted.

Now I don't know if this will work for sites such as Lisa's or others trying to sell things. The military is a close knit community and it was more storylines and images we were displaying, not selling.

The jist of the story though, is that if you don't ask, you'll never know!