Considering Creative Commons
by Troy on Feb.21, 2010
Until today, 100% of my publicly posted images were licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works standards. In short, this means that anyone can repost any of my images, as long as they attribute the image back to me and do not alter the original in anyway.
Yesterday I received emails from two separate artists who had each reappropriated my portraits of Willie and Jerry. While I appreciated them giving me a heads up, I wondered how effective using a CC license really was if people were clearly “remixing” my images without my permission. Should I file a DMCA takedown notice, I wondered? I have issued these notices several times in the past, but only if someone reposted an image with no attribution at all, and worse — were claiming it as their own.
I then started to think about my collection of San Francisco graffiti. I am, in effect, taking a photograph of someones art. I then bring the image into a post-processing program, adjust the colors, clean it up, and post it to Flickr under my name. I wasn’t able to draw anything less than a gray line between the digital artists interpretation of my photo than I was between my photo of a graffiti artists letters and characters.
That said, I’ve just updated the usage rules on my entire library to Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike, which removes the “non-derivative” restriction. (The only reason I had the restriction in place was to prevent poor cropping). It states, “If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.”
I think its great to see the way another artist creatively interprets an image through fresh eyes. And I hope the graffiti artists feel the same way about my photos.
What do you think? How do you license your images online, and how do you enforce their usage?
8 Comments for this entry
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Using the No-Derivatives Clause «
February 22nd, 2010 on 10:22 am[...] 22, 2010 · Leave a Comment Troy Holden has a new post on his experience with the No-Derivatives clause in the CC BY-NC-ND. From the post: [...]
February 21st, 2010 on 10:51 am
I have my default licensing set to “Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons” as I deeply believe in the open sharing of ideas and and knowledge. To share an idea with someone, then tell them they aren’t allowed to think about it outside of the guidelines I have given would be assinine, and to forbid them share their own additional ideas on non personal matters would be churlish at best. I tend to see art as ideas expressed in particular ways so it follows that I think allowing derivations are important.
I try to remember to switch to “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons” for images that have people in them. There was a bit of a kerfuffle a few years ago over the rights of the person in the image being violated because the license the images owner chose. (http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7680)
Though, as my photos are more the equivalent of quickly jotted journal entries than thousand word prose, very few people make use of the license.
February 21st, 2010 on 12:34 pm
I think that point of view rocks. Thank you.
February 21st, 2010 on 1:52 pm
This made my day. Thank you for being a good person.
I can attest that graffiti artists appreciate your photos.
February 21st, 2010 on 2:21 pm
I think you bring an interesting point Troy. I truly enjoy when people are able to view, share and use my pictures as much as they’d like as it is always flattering to see peeps and flickr friends use them as inspiration or what not around their blogs or share them with friends in spacebook or whatever trend people are nowadays. I also enjoy doing the same with my fellow peers, and able to repost them, use them as my screensaver etc.
The positive experiences have outnumbered the negatives, since I started posting pics/posts a few years back. I think that the internet is a tremendously dynamic place and the communities around a particular similar subject, in my case bikes, are pretty tight, &if someone was to repost or reclaim stuff as their own, id be caught on pretty quickly.
Anyways – the beauty of all this, in its own way is being able to see everything on such a real-time fashion and the proximity that one city could bring to another from half-way around the world, bring people together with a passion for shooting everyday life and sharing it here, the web.
cheers -meli
February 21st, 2010 on 7:40 pm
I seriously doubt if someone who wants to copy something off the internet so they can use it on their FaceBook page is going to take the trouble to look for the occasional and mysterious Creative Common symbols so they can, with a bit of research, understand what is permitted and what is not. The way I look at it — permission granted or not — put something good enough on the Internet and you may as well kiss it goodbye. But heck, all they’re getting is a low-res web copy, not the original in order to sell it or make prints.
I can also see how easily the Creative Commons attributions could be lost if whoever uses the image doesn’t follow through and make sure the symbols remain with the image. And how many people really understand the mystery behind those symbols — I know I was rather vague on the entire concept until today (thanks Troy)…
But what really bugs me is when people link to images that reside on my server (((mainly my cat photos))) — that could potentially cause my web-host to increase my rates if someone linking to an image on my server generates some exceptionally heavy traffic.
February 22nd, 2010 on 2:48 am
I pretty much ONLY post photos of graffiti and street art, and use the CC Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works licence. I like the idea, a few blogs pick up my shots and credit the source, it’s all good.
What I do have a problem with is that a small number of graffiti artists take my shots off Flickr and re-post them with full copyright and no credit for me as the photographer. When I’ve found this happening and asked them to change it, I’ve had it very aggressively pointed out that I’m taking pictures of their graffiti and they can do what they want with my shots. Some graffiti artists will NOT credit the photographer, as a matter of principle it seems. My only recourse in that situation is I have a small list of people that I will never take another shot of their stuff again.
February 22nd, 2010 on 8:07 am
I maintain an All Rights Reserved right on my own work. I have doubts as to how effective even that is, but I do it not because I won’t tolerate derivative works or won’t allow the use of my photos but because it’s important to me that I have a say in the matter. That said, I rarely photograph other people’s art in it’s entirety and posting it as my own (photographic) work. It’s still a question worth pondering, however. How many signs, buildings or other “non-artistic” works do we photograph, claiming the work as our own? Or, is it only an issue if we’re simply documenting what we see, rather than using our own art to pull out a new and/or hidden meaning not seen or intended by the original artist?
February 22nd, 2010 on 4:36 pm
My views are a little different…
People have appropriated images of mine and I generally don’t care – as long as it’s not done wholesale in quantity. It’s not worth worrying about and it can’t be controlled anyway.
However, I feel very differently about someone appropriating and then posting a derivate work off my street portraits. There’s a trust that develops when I engage a stranger on the street, and with that an implied promise that whatever I post on the net will represent the subject with a certain amount of dignity. This comes from knowing that most people are not happy with how they look photographed, let alone having a photo posted for all to see. I have lots of portraits that will never see the light of day because I haven’t met that standard. That’s worked well from doing hundreds of stranger portraits, handing out loads of prints to subjects at future encounters, and many times developing friendships in the process.
Someone appropriating (that part’s OK) and subsequently creating a derivative rendering of a subject of mine is not acceptable, as a subject can be rendered in a less flattering manner (subjective, of course), or caricatured for another’s amusement. That would violate the trust I spoke of above. As an aside, that’s an evolving view and about growing as a photographer. Years ago I could care less how street pix of people I snapped were portrayed. Outrageous was interesting and cool – no limits. Pretty selfish back then…