"i don't google photos and use [them] because they almost all have copyrights ...sigh..."

Congratulations, JIT, for choosing to create all of your gridwork by hand. You do fine work.

You're French? I have no idea where Gridcosm stands legally in the eyes of the EU or the French government. The EU may have problems appreciating cyberlibertarianism EFF style.

If I ever badly cross the copyright line, I'm sure Jon or Ed will inform me. So far, I've never received a complaint. This month I'm entering my fifth year of Gridcosm.

"i give my hard work and pixel perfect blend my borders to respect other artists"

I'm sure that Barbara Bush would approve. ;-)

However, there is room for improvement insofar as your grid poem contributions are concerned. Words such as yours (quoted above) belong in this forum, not in the grid poem.

I follow the informal standard for collage established in the 1970s--I believe it was tested in U.S. courts a few decades back. This standard is somewhat similar to the literary and journalistic concept of fair use. The Free Expression Policy Project <www.fepproject.org> I use fragments of photos, which I usually alter in Photoshop. No element of 'borrowed' material should comprise a large percentage of the overall artwork, which I define as a single Gridcosm level.

U.S. court opinions regarding parody sometimes pertain.

Here are some (hopefully) relevant quotes that I found online. Problems with copyright and trade dress <www.patenting-art.com> The webpage where I found these quotes is mostly about protecting the intellectual property of artists--rather than copyright violations in artwork--but I think it's worth checking out anyway.

''An example of assigning new meaning to an old image is Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. By defacing the Mona Lisa, Duchamp gave new meaning to this seminal piece of renaissance artistry.'' I always give an image that I ''borrow'' new meaning.

''The legal definition of originality is strikingly perverse.''

''copyright [cannot] exist in a work produced as a true collective enterprise'' You won't ever make any money creating Gridcosm squares...sigh...

''appropriation art'' I don't consider myself to be an Appropriation Artist, but I find the name of this category amusing. For that matter, I find the fact that this category exists amusing.