A word about photos

Submitted by skeptic on Sat, 2011-08-27 10:53
Share this post with

As producers of online IP, I think some bloggers could have more respect for the work of others. Today I want to mention photographers. Is blogging a commercial activity? I only make peanuts from this blog, but I'm building a business brand and I'm talking about business topics. You bet I consider this blog a commercial activity. So is any IT-related blog.

I'm interested in the number of blogs that use Flickr or Picasa pics that are almost all Creative-Commons-non-commercial. If your blog is about IT, don't be telling me its a hobby or other non-commercial activity. Use the picture? Pay the photographer.

And many of those blogs don't credit the pic either. The only thing worse than seeing your work ripped off is seeing it ripped off without attribution.

CC doesn't mean free-for-all. Learn what the different Creative Commons licences mean. The vast majority of pics online are non-commercial. This means you can't use them for commercial purposes without asking permission, and if necessary buying a licence. Otherwise its called stealing. IP theft.

I buy my pics and (usually) credit them. I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou here: I forget to credit. But I don't think I ever forgot to pay. It's for selfish reasons: I want the same respect for my content.

Comments

Submitted by JamesFinister on Wed, 2011-08-31 06:32.

Name and shame

As a prolific photographer, and rather less prolific blogger I can't say I've particularly noticed this problem. It would be useful to know which blogs I should be boycotting. Of course it might just be I don't notice it because my own photos aren't good enough to be ripped off, though I do use them to illustrate my own blog.

James Finister
www.tcs.com
http://coreitsm.blogspot.com/

Syndicate content