I’m a big fan of Creative Commons. If you’re not familiar, Creative Commons is a solution for licensing work that’s more flexible than copyright but with more control thatn public domain. It’s a way to allow other people to use your work freely with simple requirements such as requiring attribution or asking it not be used for commercial purposes. If you want to learn more about Creative Commons, I strongly recommend Creative Commons founder Larry Lessig’s talk at TED as well as Creative Commons’ about page.
I release almost all of my photography on Flickr under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. In basic terms, this means that anyone can use my photography freely as long as they give me credit and it’s for non-commercial use. I think it’s a very flexible license especially for other bloggers and nonprofit organizations. For anyone that wants to use my photography for other means, I’m very clear on my Flickr page to contact me if you’d like to use my photography for other means.
In most cases that people contact me wishing to use my photography, I let them use it for free. Although I do charge for for-profit print publications, for example.
On Boing Boing
On Wednesday night a photo of mine (shown above) showed up on Boing Boing with my hand with my OLPC Laptop in my living room. It’s not often that I show up on what’s considered by some to be the most popular and one of the most authoritative blogs in the world. My photo was posted without attribution and in a commercial situation. (Boing Boing, incorporated as Happy Mutants LLC, certainly makes money.)
Normally I am not surprised when someone uses my photography on their website without attribution as it’s common right now for copyright and Creative Commons to be ignored in this kind of context. What is surprising about this situation is that this post on Boing Boing is written by Cory Doctorow, one of the most vocal advocates of Creative Commons in the world. He’s featured on Creative Commons’ website as he’s published entire books under Creative Commons licenses. Doctorow talks about Creative Commons so much that on BoingBoingBingo “Creative Commons is So Awesome” and “Cory’s Book is Translated” (a natural benefit of Creative Commons licensing) are two squares on most of the bingo boards.
So why would Cory Doctorow use my photo in a way that breaks the Creative Commons license? It has to be a mistake, right?
On Other Sites
I went back to the story that Boing Boing linked to, a story on OLPC News about overclocking the XO Laptop. A lower resolution version of my photo is used there and it links back to my original Flickr page. As far as attribution goes, this is good enough for me and this kind of use.
What’s interesting though is that Boing Boing used a higher resolution version of the photo than what’s posted on OLPC News. This means that Doctorow would have had to click the image and go to my Flickr page to get a version of the photo to place on Boing Boing. On that Flickr page is the Creative Commons license.
So I commented on that Boing Boing post: “I’m a bit disappointed that Boing Boing, which is a pretty avid supporter of Creative Commons didn’t follow the CC license on the photo, which was shot by me.” I also sent Cory Doctorow an email asking him to replace the photo or to follow the license. I also gave him permission to use the photo (although Boing Boing isn’t non-profit) if he links back to my Flickr page with attribution. I got no reply from Doctorow, but a few people chimed in with support in the comments.
As with many stories on Boing Boing, other blogs re-blog the content to reach their own audiences and spur their own conversations about it. Creative Commons is designed around this idea of information sharing and republishing, but if one part of the chain doesn’t give attribution and rereleases it under another Creative Commons license, it doesn’t do it’s job.
My friend Ed Hunsinger pointed out to me that Slash Gear picked up the story and the same photo without attribution or a link back. I commented right away and Slash Gear editor James Allan Brady fixed it up right away. Ed later showed me that MAKE blog posted about it too and didn’t give attribution to my photo either. I commented on their blog about it but as of right now is still not approved nor has their post been updated to respect the license.
I’m almost positive that other blogs have reposted the content of Boing Boing’s post as well. All it takes is for one person in the chain to disregard the license for the license to be broken on all subsequent uses.
I’m Curious About Creative Commons
I am not upset at anyone but I am curious. I would let almost anyone use that photography for free, even in many commercial situations. The photo isn’t anything special to me and I have no reason to need extra traffic to that photo on Flickr. This situation has caused me to think more about Creative Commons and how much more realistic it is than copyright as we move more into a culture of information and media sharing at levels that are hard for most people to imagine. If one of the biggest mouthpieces for Creative Commons will seemingly disregard a Creative Commons license and not respond when being asked to fix it, what does that tell us about a future when Creative Commons becomes more widespread?
Updates
Fun to wake up the next morning to see a lot of good comments and emails.
Most importantly, Cory Doctorow fixed the post on Boing Boing. He didn’t get my email but he was alerted to the comments on the post just recently (many of which seem to be removed except for mine). He apologized and said it was an honest mistake. I believe him completely. We’ve shared a couple good emails. I still think this situation raises questions of how effective Creative Commons can be, most importantly among people that disregard copyright in the first place.
Thumbuki writes in the comments that the same thing happened to him on the same day:
(Original Photo, Boing Boing post). This one also has since been fixed.
Joshua Benton writes a very insightful post that addresses my interpretation of “commercial” and illustrates how vague Creative Commons is in this regard. Recommended reading.
Derek Powazek chime ins with a similar example of his wife’s photography used on Boing Boing TV. The kicker here is that his wife also happens to be the Community Manager at Flickr. Boing Boing also eventually resolved this one by removing the photo.
Taylor Carik Takes a look at The New Social Circulation: Frontline, Out of Print, and the XO Laptop Photo
Nature photographer Jim M. Goldstein chimes in on the issue that Creative Commons is only as good as those that use it.
More links and discussion in the comments. A lot of great conversation on this topic; thanks everyone.
