Introduction
This is one of Craig's photos, the friend that told me about the creative commons and Flicker
I have a friend who is a talented photographer. He primarily shoots weddings to make money although his main passion is shooting abandoned buildings around the globe. He told me that some of his photos are going to be featured in a Hungarian History textbook. I asked him how much money he was going to make and he replied none. He told me that Flicker has an option to let people use a Creative Commons license for their photos, which allows other to use them at no cost as long as they correctly attribute the photos.
I like to have examples of things in my blog. At the same time I don’t want to violate copyright law. Whenever I use a copyrighted image I always tell the person and remove it if they object. Although with the recent court decisions about Google Books settlement, I wonder if my practice is a viable and legal method. The nice thing about this Flicker Creative Commons feature is that I can find photos to feature and know that the owner approves the use.
What is Creative Commons?
The Creative Commons is a license has been one of the best features of Web 2.0. The most popular Creative Commons site is Wikipedia. Other Creative Commons ideas include open source software and open access publishing. The most important aspect of all creative commons licensed products is that the software, article, photo, artwork, etc. is free to the public, universally accessible and transparent. By transparent I mean that you can see how it works.
When someone uses a Creative Commons license it can never be removed. For the indefinite future it belongs to the public and users can do with it as they please. The only real caveat is that you are supposed to continue the creative commons license and continue to allow free use. Sometimes people charge, in general most these add-ons are free. This means that if I load an image into Flicker and say it has a creative commons license then other people can use it, and when they use it they are supposed to tell me. As the owner you give up certain rights hoping to share this image with the world.
How Do You Search?
Here is a photo of a workbench I found using the first search string
Searching for Creative Common’s images can be a bit tricky. For starters there are lots of companies that are trying to sell their stock photos who will use search engine tricks to make sure that their stuff is at the top. The nice thing about the Creative Commons photos in Flicker is that the search feature in Flicker is easy to use. I usually create a pretty simple search string starting with the word I want, then followed by Creative Commons or cc, which is a common abbreviation for Creative Commons.
For example if I were looking for an image of a workbench I would create the search string:
Workbench Creative Commons
If that did not give enough results I would try:
Workbench CC
Remember to check the copyright after looking at the image. People mess up tags all the time so always double check. This way when you use it you are sure it has a Creative Commons license. Another option is to do an advanced search and click the box for Creative Commons only.
How Do You Cite?
Once you find your image how do you tell the person? It is not like their phone number is in Flicker. There are two things you should do. First, contact the rights holder via Flicker and tell them. You don’t have to wait for a reply, Creative Commons says the owner has already given up their rights, just send them the message. The message needs to say which image you are using, what you are using it for, and thank you.
Second, if the image is being used in an online format you should provide a link back to the photo as another form of citation. In addition it gives the image a higher page rank because outbound links are one of the most important factors in page rank. Plus, it is polite and standard practice to link back to the image. If you have an account with Flicker this process is easier. You can get the embedded html code in the image itself. This is not as useful for an online format, because you are providing the link back anyway, but if you want to use the image in a PowerPoint presentation the html information is embedded in the photo.
Conclusion
If I could make this image Creative Commons in Etsy I would
Creative Commons is a really feature of the Internet. In addition Flicker’s policy of allowing people to place their Creative Commons images is a great asset for bloggers and other start up publishers. In the future if you need an image of something make sure to check out Flicker, it might just be what your looking for and you can follow copyright laws. It would be great to see this feature expanded to Etsy, Folksy, Artfire and other art selling websites.
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