With the exponential growth of photo sites like flickr, zooomr, and stock.xchng, there is a real need to raise the awareness of copyright laws and infringements. I ran across this photo on flickr entitled "Never Mind Your Copyright" (which I’m using appropriately under the Creative Commons some rights reserved). He writes a rant about this issue entitled "Freedom of expression?? Telling the truth??"on his blog. Copyright issues are becoming a very hot topic and will gain more and more press over the next few years. The photographer generated this image as a statement back to flickr about issues related to his photos being used in-appropriately.
Another related story reported by the Sydney Morning Herald states that a Texas family is taking Virgin Mobile phone company to court over their use of the girls image taken from a photo posted on flickr. While the photographer released the image under a sharing license, the company neglected to get a release from the family to use the image. This of course is a major no no.
It is easy to point fingers at large companies like Virgin Mobile and say shame, shame, for not following due process to get a release and offer some compensation to the model and most probably the photographer. In the case of the many other copyright infringements by bloggers who inappropriately re-use flickr and other photo sites, I believe those sites share culpability with the bloggers. There is more the photo sites could do to protect the photographers and to inform the users of the sites.
Some suggestions for photo sites to better inform users
- Post copyright guidelines more prominently on their site. If they are following the Creative Commons standards, they should re-state or link-out to those guidelines.
- Make the statements for use of a specific photo more obvious. This should not be considered the fine print, but rather a prominently placed tag next to the photo and download button. Of all the sites I’ve seen stock.xchng seems to do this the best.
- Raise the awareness through a media campaign. This would instill confidence in users that they would be in less danger of infringement.
- Provide usage examples to follow. More than stating the guidelines, educating users with visual use examples will help them properly cite borrowed media.
Most users are eager to follow the law and respect creative works. If media sites raise the level of awareness; the creators of the works, those re-using the works and the photo sites all win in the end.
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13 Comments
Yes, an interesting topic. When I Google for images, it’s funny how one will show up from many sites (10 or more…) and when I check, there’s no original source credited, so it’s difficult to know whom to give credit to if I want to use it.
Recently I received an email from someone asking permission to use a photo I took this past summer. I received a link to the article that was being written so I could give permission with that knowledge in mind. Not too difficult to do if there’s a system for it.
One thing I would add is that groups at some of these sites need to band together to spot and stop infringements. DeviantArt has such a squad, known as the Ripped Art Task Force, and I think Flickr has established one too.
Those groups can do a lot to discourage, detect and help stop infringements.
However, your points remain very valid, sites need to make the copyright choices of the photographer or artist very clear and many don’t do so. Deviant Art is one of the worst here, Flickr are at least a little better.
If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know!
Kelly, This is a major pet peeve of mine as well. I always am looking for photos that are licensed under fare use both for personal and professional purposes. I didn’t mention Google images, but I wonder if they insisted on a use tag before listing if folks would get in line.
Asking for use is a simple thing to do and in most cases you’ll get a yes. That is part of my encouragement w/ the “What’s Up with the Creative Commons Stuff?” post. Good stuff.
Jonathan,
That’s an excellent point and well taken. A more concerted watch-dog effort is a great thing. Just this morning I actually ran across copy in a blog that was identical to copy in a second blog. I had a good sense of which was the originating post with all rights reserved and just popped the author a note w/ a link. It’s relevant to copy, video and audio as well, but photos are the current hot topic.
The best thing you can do is to reference this post either in your blog, through StumbleUpon, Digg or other social bookmarking sites to raise the awareness of these points. I sincerely would like to see some ground gained in this area and quickly. There is no reason why Flickr, Google and others could raise the agenda and make it happen. It’s really in their best interest.
Certainly practical advice, but it’s nothing almost any design agency in the world doesn’t already know.
With tight deadlines and often tighter budgets, these legal copyright considerations are entirely secondary to just getting the job done…
Yes, the main point of the article is to encourage the photo sites to do a better job of posting rights, contacting photographers and generally raising the issue. Certainly design agencies (for the most part) take notice, but with online publication in the hands of the general public, they need to make provision for that audience as well. Also considering snafu’s like Virgin Mobile, I imagine there will be a tightening-up on the practices to provision time in the budget for resourcing images.
So what do we do if we want to use some image for our blog?
Random, Check the rights associated with the image. Sites like sxc.hu and others have rights indicated next to the photo. It may take a little while to get used to the terminology, but it’s an important step to take to be legit. Many times the rights usage requires no notification or credit back to the photographer, sometimes crediting the photographer is required and sometimes you need to get expressed permission to use the photo. Remember also, if it’s a close-up image of another person or people, you may need to pursue permission from the model even if the photographer grants permission to use the image. The safest and most expeditious route to take is using the first level I mentioned.
So if I use an image from Google – I should email for permission? Will including the website suffice?
Random,
Not necessarily. You need to follow the terms listed on the website. In some cases the images are open for use, in others, a credit mentioned or link-back will suffice. Some require permission and some are all rights reserved. If no policy is given, assume the strictest and contact them. Sounds like a pain, but it is the right and legal thing to do. The other option is to surf sites like sxc.hu that do a fairly decent job of explaining the policies.
Just found a great explanation on how to use CSS to lay-up images with credits and caption. Check out: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/figurehandler
Thanks Phil.
um, just spotted this, can I just say this image was created by me but the blog has nothing to do with me at all.
it’s Rebbekkas blog site. She had images stolen by some git that then sold them on ebay as theirs.
I just made the image (itself meant to be ironic as of course it is an obvious copy of Jamie Reids work)
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