Last September, I changed the licensing of my Flickr stream to release all content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license. It seemed like the right thing to do to let non-commercial entities enjoy my work as long as they provided me with credit.
Unfortunately the spirit of my licensing intentions doesn’t always jive with the ambiguity of the Creative Commons licenses. What exactly is commercial use? Selling a T-shirt or print of the photo is obviously commercial… but what about a blog that uses the photo and also runs advertisements? What exactly is attribution? Crediting the photographer by real name? Online username? No explicit credit but linking the photo to a Flickr page? I know in my mind what my answers would be to these questions, but the license doesn’t answer the questions.
Enforcing a Creative Commons license often leads to the role of being an educator, and then quibbling over details. Last week, I encountered three different situations where someone was using a photo of mine (released under Creative Commons) in what I understood to be a violation of the license agreement. I posted an update on Twitter after encountering the third one, which led to a couple people making pleas that I should simply work with the offenders to educate them about what the license really means.
Writing an email that explains the license along with the specific issues for a violation probably takes 20-30 minutes. Responses and followup can eat up more time. Doing three of those in a week is simply time that I don’t have.
I’m no longer releasing my personal work under Creative Commons*. I’ll continue to grant no-fee usage rights in some cases, but they’ll be on an explicit and as-requested basis. I support the spirit of the Creative Commons license but unfortunately the details are vague. I hope that in the future there will be a more explicit license that can easily be applied to my work on places such as Flickr that will allow more more fine-grained control and less confusion.
* Of course, if one of my clients requests Creative Commons licensing for their photos, that can be included as part of the contract.
Recently Facebook was in the news over a change to its terms of service. Specifically, Facebook removed a clause that explicitly stated that their license to display and use content would expire if a user removed their content from the service*.
Photographers have a dilemma when it comes to using Facebook to promote their business. Facebook is a major social network, and having a presence on Facebook is a good marketing move to increase exposure to a wide audience. On the other hand, even after the recent public outcry over Facebook’s terms, the content licensing terms continue to give Facebook a non-exclusive license to use uploaded content in any form they choose, including resale, creating derivative works, and displaying the content outside Facebook.
This becomes a dilemma when one considers things such as uploading portfolio images. Displaying your work for potential clients = good. Giving Facebook the rights to do anything they want with your work = bad.
I made the choice to leave Facebook, at least until they move to more reasonable licensing. Other photographers love Facebook. It’s a personal choice, but one should know what is at stake.
Last week, I gave a presentation at Ignite Portland giving a quick overview of social media, social networks, and content licensing:
* I was actually the first to blog about the expiration clause being removed. See Facebook Terms of Service Change: Content is now Licensed Forever which was a followup to Facebook’s Rights Grab: I’m Out on another one of my blogs.
My office for my day job is across the street from a Burger King. It’s not the healthiest of options, but I’ll eat there occasionally. Last week I noticed this new sign on the door:
As a private business, Burger King is certainly welcome to set their own policies. But I have to wonder… are they that uptight about lawsuits that they’re going to prohibit photography in a fast food restaurant. I doubt I would’ve been taking many gallery-worthy photos at my local BK, but their policy turns me off as a photographer and as a customer. I’d urge other photographers to choose alternate fast food instead of support a company that won’t allow photography.
Thomas Hawk has written some blog posts recently about the current anti-photography anti-terror campaign in the UK, but it’s not just the cross-Atlantic neighbors to the east that have issues with unreasonable photographer suspicion. Last summer there was quite a buzz surrounding two “Middle-Eastern looking” men who were seen taking pictures on the Washington State Ferries.
Turns out that they weren’t terrorists, but rather ordinary businessmen who were just interested in the ferries.
On an unrelated note, I’m aware there are some issues when attempting to page back through previous blog posts. I’m currently looking into the problem and hope to have it resolved shortly.
With a forecast in the mid-70s for yesterday, our family wanted to do something in the Portland area outside to enjoy the weather, and naturally I wanted to involve photography. My wife suggested the Portland Japanese Garden, which I’d only been to once (several years prior) and hadn’t taken photos. We looked at their website to get directions and information, and discovered they have a very restrictive photography policy.
In short, there’s a $150/year fee to take any photos which will potentially be used for any sort of commercial effort. If you don’t pay the fee, you have to sign a policy that you will never sell any of the images you take. If you’re like me and shoot stuff and then work on possibly marketing it at a later point, you’re pretty much screwed unless you pay the $150. They don’t allow any portrait photography under any circumstances. If you’re only shooting for personal, non-commercial use and don’t pay the $150 fee, there’s a $2 tripod fee. Everyone who takes photos (with the fee or not) is required to allow their marketing department to use the photos for promotional purposes.
Yes, they’re a private entity and are free to set their own rules. However when the rules are so restrictive that it prevents folks from an enjoyable experience, that’s a loss for the Gardens and a loss for photographers. Based on their restrictive rules, we chose to go elsewhere this weekend.
