Does it violate copyright law to use a picture I found online to be displayed with my blog entry?

it depends on the particular picture. if the picture is in the "public domain" then you are free to duplicate it and use it as you wish. typically copyrighted work enters the public domain 50 years or so after the creator's death, so most public-domain stuff is old. images of the mona lisa, for instance, are public domain.

some copyrighted works lately have been distributed under some special licenses - for instance, the "creative commons license" allows for mostly free use, but i think you have to credit the creator.

most of the time if you want to use a copyrighted image, you have to contact the creator of the image and ask for their permission to use it.

there is an exemption to copyright law in the united states called the "fair use" doctrine which applies mostly to educational use. if your blog is part of an educational project, you may be able to use it legally.

if none of these special cases apply, you are probably in violation of copyright law. however, odds are that nobody's going to care or even notice. this kind of thing happens all the time on the internet since digital files can be copied so easily. however, it's been known to happen - lots of owners of disney fan-sites have received cease & desist letters from disney's lawyers for displaying images of mickey mouse, for instance. (no kidding)

the one thing you definitely shouldn't do is link to the image on someone else's site. this is especially true if your blog is high-traffic, since every visitor to your site downloads the image from some other poor schmuck's web server. most people pay for internet hosting by the gigabyte, which means you are costing someone money if you do this. so don't. it's mean.

I totally understand how you feel! Just ten mins ago I was looking at photos when I was suddenly booted out. I tried to log back in and it said wrong user name. Then it said no internet connection. After that it said my account was disabled for terms of use violation. I check the terms of use and I have not violated any of them. I only posted pics of myself and food I ate and took pictures of, so I'm really confused as to why they did this. I have google searched and found that other people have had this same problem. Instagram also says you can open a new account using the same email as your disabled account. So what is the point of closing it in the first place? If someone is doing something that they deem wrong then why tell them to open another one? Makes no sense. I'm done with instagram and I will tell others that it's a crappy site.

That picture is someone elses and you should give credit where credit is due. YES IT violates every copyright law.