The Day's Sean Elliot captured an unforgettable image last month of the Coast Guard's tall ship Eagle enveloped in sea smoke in New London harbor.

Readers commented about its haunting beauty, some remarking it looked like "a ghost ship." 

The next day, we opened our social media feeds to see many people had reposted the photo. We were happy you liked the picture, but in case you aren't aware, we own the rights to the content we produce. The right thing to do, according to Elliot, is to share a link to the story containing the photo, bringing people to theday.com.

"All of the original content in the paper is copyrighted," said Timothy Dwyer, The Day's publisher and president, when we talked Friday. "That means it can't be republished, disseminated, broadcast or used in any way without the express written consent of The Day Publishing Co. That's the law."

Most mornings, you can tune in to a couple of local radio stations and hear someone reading The Day's stories without giving us credit. If we didn't know better, we would conclude, hearing how confidently they read the news, that they had gathered it themselves. We can assure you, we recognize every single news brief and major story they pilfer from our pages. We recognize stories they occasionally plagiarize from other papers, too.

"If they're not concerned about us, they should be concerned for their readers or listeners to know where their stuff is coming from and whether it can be trusted," Dwyer said. "We're the most trusted source of news in our area."

Then there's the folks who copy and paste entire articles into their Facebook feeds. Had they posted a link to the story on theday.com, we'd have been thrilled. That way, people come to our site, access their three free stories a month, and consider subscribing for full access to our stories, photos, videos, podcasts and everything else you love — or love to hate — about your local newspaper.

"There's a cost to original reporting," Dwyer said. "We make a very modest profit and donate most of it to charity (the Bodenwein Public Benevolent Foundation)."

We spoke with attorney Bill Fish, a First Amendment expert who works with news organizations around the state. He said the federal copyright laws are enforceable and "there are significant statutory damages you can get for things like this." He had some suggestions on what we could do.

"It's more about protecting your intellectual property, your name and all the hard work you're spending money to develop," he said by phone.

Elliot, who answered some questions by email, said he doesn't go searching for images being misused. When we find them, he said, we send a notice demanding the image be taken down.

"I generally point out that individuals are more than welcome to post links to Day content, which will usually include the image they like in the preview," he said.

Elliot said the "Eagle in the Sea Smoke" photo has been a popular reprint purchase. We sell photographs through a service called SmugMug, which can be found at theday.smugmug.com or by clicking the "Buy Photo reprints" link to the lower right of photos on our website. The use of those photos is limited to "personal" use, such as framing or hanging on your wall, Elliot said. The service does also include photos imprinted on mouse pads, jigsaw puzzles and coffee mugs.

He said The Day licenses news images for similar use by other new organizations but doesn't license images for commercial or promotional use by private companies or organizations, nor to government institutions.

Karen Florin is The Day's engagement editor. She can be reached at k.florin@theday.com or (860) 701-4217.