Last week I wrote about the use of a Flickr user’s copyrighted photo to illustrate a point. In that case, the blogger was only using the image as an illustrative tool; that is, it was intended to enhance the visual appeal of his blog post and no more.
This week, we have a far more egregious misuse of Flickr photos. Sefra is taking others’ Flickr photos and posting them on his Blogspot blog (which I will not link to) for anyone to use as Flickr wallpapers. Now, to his credit, he is at least giving the credit to the owners of the photos, rather than claiming it himself, and if he were up-front with the owners of the photos about blogging their work and offering them as wallpaper, it would be at least a little bit more acceptable.
However, he has Adsense ads on the blog and is clearly trying to make some money from what others do. That’s just not right. His response to McShutter’s request to remove his images from the blog is in the image at the beginning of this post. Essentially, I CAN do it, therefore I SHALL. McShutter has set copyright restrictions to the tightest — “All Rights Reserved”. It’s clearly visible for anyone to see. So even if the Flickr API doesn’t foreclose the reproduction of others’ work, the copyright restriction on the photo itself should have stopped Sefra in his tracks.
There are lots and lots of Creative Commons images on Flickr that Sefra could have used fairly. The problem, of course, is that most of the BEST Flickr images are copyrighted, and that’s for a reason. These people know that this is some of their best work and they hope to be recognized and receive credit (maybe even financial reward) for what they do. When someone takes their work and uses it for their own profit or gain without permission, it’s stealing. McShutter is understandably outraged, and he should be.
One of the earliest lessons we teach our kids is how to share and respect others’ property. Yet it seems that when it come to applying those lessons to online interactions, all the rules are thrown out of the window. Those of us who share photos, videos, and other works here on the Internet expect to receive the courtesy that we request by attaching usage permissions to our work. You can use any of the audio, photo or video I post on this blog, as long as you give me credit, don’t change them in any way, and don’t use them to make money. If you make money from my work, you are stealing. (As a side note, one of my photos is on this blog too – the one that’s the most popular on Flickr…but it’s CC licensed. It would have been nice to been told, though)
If people continue to disrespect the rights of others to control how their images are used, those people will begin to restrict access, which is a loss to Flickr and to the photographic community at large. This is why DRM came into being — because people would not be respectful of others’ rights to own, distribute and profit from their work. Let’s find a better way to respect the rights of others.
