ASK FIRST, DAMMIT!
While I’m flattered that Ryan Singel of Wired News Blogs liked my picture of the court house in Fall River, MA enough to use it on their blog the other day. And, I’m happy that he attributed the photograph to me, in accordance with the Creative Commons license under which it was posted to flickr.
However, it’s common courtesy to ask first if you’re planning to use somebody’s work for an article.
In this case, Ryan would have learned that the court house in question is not in Maine, and their article is about the State of Maine rejecting the whole national driver’s license thing.
Further, by posting the downloading and posting the flickr image without linking back to the original page, he’s violated the flickr terms of service, which requires that link remain in place. (Note that as owner of the image, I can post it from my own files, and don’t need to link, in this case.)
Post Revisions:
There are no revisions for this post.
How in the world did you find out that they used it…………………..
The attribution included a link back to this site, which I noticed in my back-end control panel. I didn’t recognize the link, so, I went to look at the incoming link, and there it was.
OK, I understand where you’re coming from (sorta), and issues of compliance or non- with Flickr’s terms….
You post your image to a publicly accessible and searchable site, with an attached license that grants anyone explicit use of that image so long as it is not substantially modified and that it’s attributed.
You’ve already given permission by virtue of the CC license, for any use other than a derivative work. And in this medium (the net) it’s assumed that anyone who grants blanket license like that does so without reservation outside of the terms of the license. Does a software developer have to ask permission to use a piece of code someone else wrote, if that code is GPL’d or licensed similarly? Do I need to notify a band that releases a CC-licensed track that I’ve used their music as background for a podcast? No. Same thing.
If that’s troubling, perhaps CC licensing isn’t what you’re looking for. By using CC, you’re explicitly relinquishing some control over your work by turning some rights over to the “Commons” part of it. There’s no obligation for anyone to ask permission or notify you of that common use, unless it falls outside the terms of the CC license. Maybe you really want to retain copyright, or write your own license that’s more restrictive, but that also makes it less likely that someone will want to use your content in preference to images with less restrictive terms.
License or not, it is still common courtesy to ask, or at least inform, the photographer that you are using their work. Most responsible journalists and e-journalists will do this.
Of course, now that I think of it, this is 2007. Common courtesy went out years ago. I guess I just expect too much.