Thread: dealing with copyrights

Can someone give me some inmfo dealing with copy rights.

I just made a game(first graphical game) in sdl. Now for my background I used a wallpaper created at a site(not mine). This site charges for membership to view most of their files, but they have several free galleries as well. I got the file out of the free gallery. Is it ok if I use this picture in my game? I know I will never sell this game, but I might tell a few people about my game and let them download it. I just don't want to get into any trouble or anything. If I can use this image what are the appropriate measures to take?

It is probably OK if you use it but just to be sure you should e-mail the owner of the pictures with the url to the one you are using and ask for permission.

Good manners is to also include a thank you somewhere. I used to not include thanks in my stuff, I was like "Well, who cares, they gave it to me and I used it.", but now that I'm giving people code and making libraries and graphics, it kinda makes me mad when I help someone out with hundreds of lines of code, and I don't even get my name in a lousy text file or in the credits.