You see, unlike almost ANY other industry, our mistakes are very, very public.

There's no running or hiding in this game. No point.

Hence why we are putting our hands up straight away with this one, even though it was inadvertent.

On Friday, July 10 we published a photo of Cowra motorbike rider Jack Dawes.

In doing so we breached the copyright of the photographer Scott Browne.

The Cowra Guardian apologises to Mr Browne for this inadvertent breach.

We are really glad Scott brought this matter to our attention (thanks Scott).

In this day and age, with photos flying all over the internet, copyright issues are increasingly an issue for media professionals.

Throw in social media, and it becomes even more murkier.

The ease of copying and pasting photos doesn't mean it's right.

We always make it extremely clear what our intentions are regarding photos and their publication, and you'll find it further addressed in our social media policy on our Facebook page.

Our readers are the single most important people in our world.

They are the people who read our paper, buy our paper, share our paper and spread the word about our paper.

We want to share and sing their praises out loud; we don't intend to take credit for their amazing photos, we want to sing THEIR praises for THEIR photos!

We are very thankful for their contributions, support of the Guardian and the wider Cowra community by sharing their excitement about events in Cowra.

That's why we are so proud to have delivered our special feature on Monday of our readers' snow photos, with more planned today.

I had tears in my eyes on Monday when a reader popped in with their laminated pages of that day's edition - all part of history, they told us! They were very excited.

So keep on snapping, keep on sending in, but remember, if its someone else's photo, check with them FIRST.

janine.finlayson@fairfaxmedia.com.au