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It makes it so powerful for various uses and at the same time its their Achilles heel, when it comes to treating their photographers like dirt.
I've personally done some sort of compromise by allowing my photos to be visible on public searches (within flickr) but disallowing them from 3rd party sites.
Anyway, this topic is something that should be raised to public awareness and as a result, I submitted it to digg. Let's see, if it makes it to front page.
I was on Flickr two years and I think their attitude to helping people protect their copyright has been very poor indeed. The same people that have filled up their site to the brim with great images deserve a little more care when it comes to protecting that work. I dont expect miracles but I do expect a little more than Flickr dishing out their API to anyone who wants it and then leaving it up to us, the users, to track down abuse of that API and report it to Flickr.
So, I am done with Flickr. My blog is not thief-proof but it is not as much of a honeypot as Flickr, especially not one that opens up its code to anyone who wants to get industrial about stealing the content.
Social networking sites are still learning that users can be very unforgiving when their concerns are ignored, and social networking site's success depends very much on their users' goodwill.
I find it hard to believe that flickr is incapable of modifying their API so that the photographer's wishes with respect to access by the API and licensing were ENFORCED, rather than make all photos available to developers and hope they respect them. Put out one big fire and you won't have to keep putting out endless small fires.
I am so skeptical of flickr's resistance to making the necessary changes to their API that I have come to suspect that they are tacitly encouraging copyright infringement.
For example it took well over a year for them to change a single line of text that previously had been worded to make it seem like All Rights Reserved images were in the Public Domain. Many copyright infringers pointed to the bit of text as justification for using protected imagery. (Whether this confusion was real or not it is impossible to say, but I suspect that wording provided convenient wiggle room for some of the developers.) Their new wording only a mild improvement.
flickr's whole reason for being--and value as a web-based enterprise--is "photo sharing" and I am getting the strong feeling that they value the "sharing" aspect far more than the individual rights of their customers.
It is certainly true that photographers expecting that professional standards should be supported by flickr are swimming upstream. It was never meant to be a place for professionals to show their work. As far as I can tell, it was designed to be a place where you can post snaps of Nancy's wedding or our trip to Belize. Most of these photos--and they make up the bulk of material on flickr, I suspect--are of interest only to friends and family. In fact flickr provides categories like "friends" and "family" to be used to control access to your photos if you want to do that. Photographers in this category could probably care less if someone used their photo in some other context. In fact, when a massive copyright violation is discovered and publicised on flickr, many of the people whose rights have been infringed are thrilled to be published or that someone actually "values" their work.
Professional photographers (or those doing professional-quality work) are simply in the wrong place if they expect support for their rights on flickr. It's just not in flickr's business interest to do so.
I doubt that Flickr would be where they are now if it wouldn't have those open "Web 2.0" features like the highly detailed API.
There are many ways how you can opt-out of the API usage and if you feel the need to "protect" your images - either don't put them on the web or disable the API for your account.
Though, unfortunately, what you describe is nothing new.
I pulled all my Flickr photos last year for a multitude of reasons. One of the reasons was the inability/unwillingness of Flickr to give control to photographers over their works in all respects.
For example, I found several of my images on so-called "Made for Ads" sites. These sites are template-based auto-generated sites that (due to the lack of any real content) simply pull a random selection of images from Flickr to display along their ads. These guys do not care whether a photo is ARR or CC or whatever. They just pull these images to display along their ads. Sickening. (And you can't even send a DMCA to their web host, because you can not duplicate the infringing activity. Convenient.)
As I had one of my (unique) company names embedded along each image, I was able to find several of the infringers using Google. Boy, that was an eye-opener. I found hundreds of blogs who pulled images, unauthorized. Dozens of scrapers and MFA sites. When threatening legal action, I received curses, usually along the lines of "it's RSS [or the Flickr API], so we can't control what's being displayed. If you don't want to see your image, why do you publish them on Flickr anyway?"
I got so tired of this that I finally gave up and pulled all images. I suggest to every photographer to do the same.
And no, despite high view counts Flickr did not significantly improve my business. So it's not that big a loss for me.
It seems to me that by crafting the API to allow retrieval of images regardless of their respective licences, Flickr is creating an unacceptable ambiguity. Those who innocently use software that relies on the API and thereby infringe the photographers' copyrights are correct to point the finger at Flickr. I have gotten into the habit of watermarking images I post to Flickr with an "All Rights Reserved" legend. I can see, however, that an innocent user fo such software might reasonably think, because the API allows him to pull down the image, that I had since granted a more permissive license.
Of course, the API also makes it far easier, it appears, for unscrupulous third-parties to willfully infringe. This is really Flickr's responsibility. We place our images in trust with Flickr. The company has a moral and ethical responsibility (if not a contractual responsibility) to keep the images safe if we've not licensed them for distribution.
Very scary but needed post for the photography community. Thanks for investing the time to put this up! It is partially because of these types of security holes with regards to safe guarding my legal rights that I have been very hesitant to use Flickr to date with my personal photography.
Likewise, there were a number of terms in the Flickr API Terms of Use that raised alarms for us at FocalPower when we reviewed it last year. Flickr is obviously more concerned about the community versus the members of the community. It was this disregard for helping photographers protect their images that spurred the development of the FocalPower Photo Asset Management service that we are currently in closed early stage testing on. The entire FocalPower team is excited about the capabilities that we are working on to help photographers address the continuing issues of protecting their photo assets while leveraging them in the diverse digital world we need to live in.
I simply don't trust people not stealing photos on flickr, and as such, I usually only upload photos that are watermarked in a corner, have a max size of 1200px on an edge, 72 dpi, and only 60% jpeg quality. Does this make it impossible to use my photos? No, but I think more photogs should be aware of the risks of putting photos on sites like flickr.
I've sold several photos to people who have messaged me on flickr asking to buy a print. If people rely on 3rd party tools for finding good content like flickrfan (and others), it's fine with me if it helps me increase sales in the long run. :-) I have no problem with some people seeing a low res image of mine if (and only if) it results in an increase in sales for me. I think it's important to weigh both sides of the case. If we get make it harder to build cool 3rd party apps, it may be harder to get yourself discovered by people who actually want to give you money.
Good post!
It does make me wonder about flickrs future - whether that is focussed on the 'sharing' aspects remains to be seen. Its interesting to think whether the sharing is going to be family and friends and snaps and (porn) and stuff or whether there will be a move into it becoming a site specifically for CC images - in direct competition with stock sites i guess.
I have always wondered how the Google image search manages to also override flickr settings. I realise there are multiple ways to download photos but I’m confused about this in relation to Google.
On flickr, if you have images set to no download you get the spaceball gif if anyone right clicks to download.
Yet if images are found via a Google image search, one can click on the "full size image" link in the frame at the top of the google screen and just right click and save from flickr. I realise that “full size†will depend on the individual photo concerned but in Google returns my own at medium size.
Why is this possible? Does Google use the flickr api? Is Google getting round settings? What's the point of the flickr spaceball gif then?
I therefore in the process of moving my 'sellable' stuff to a an online agency and leaving flickr for the sharers.
Before reading this even, I started taking some images off yesterday because I see no benefit to using Flickr other than to show off your favorite places to amateurs. That is something I have no interest in doing considering how little the general public cares about obeying park rules and the de-valuing of photography.
By the way, the API is just the tip of the iceberg, really. The bigger problems are the automatic RSS feeds, the options to embed photos into blogs, and the general viewability of images on the web - basically, anyone with a web browser and an internet connection can pretty much "see" most of the content on Flickr, unless the view is restricted by the user. Viewers do not have to be logged in to see the content.
This makes Flickr the # 1 source for image scrapers and image thieves. What makes it even worse is the fact that the number of images posted to Flickr is so gigantic that a withdrawal of just few portfolios, regardless of how attractive these are, does not really matter.
Belgian newspapers were showing flickr pictures tagged with the name of a city on the webpage with news about that city, not taking into account the copyright restrictions.
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To do this, we want to get photos and video into and out of the system in as many ways as we can: from the web, from mobile devices, from the users' home computers and from whatever software they are using to manage their content. And we want to be able to push them out in as many ways as possible: on the Flickr website, in RSS feeds, by email, by posting to outside blogs or ways we haven't thought of yet. What else are we going to use those smart refrigerators for?
I think you're missing the point. It isn't about making it harder to build applications, it is about Flickr not holding up their end of the bargain when it comes to license and privacy designations. If you want to make your images available via something like Flickr Fan then good for you, but if Jim doesn't, then his images shouldn't be picked up by that application.
Secondly, you have to know your market. Just because people see your images doesn't mean that they are reaching the appropriate market (buyers).
Court Says Google Thumbnails From Adult Site Don't Violate Copyright
If I do something in violation of their ToU I am held accountable for it and required to take corrective action. By your logic if they're in violation of that same agreement by Flickr or Yahoo, not to mention in violation of the law, I am to accept it. That is illogical. I, as every user of Flickr, have entered into a legally binding agreement in how private information and assets in the form of photographs are to be distributed on Flickr. If that agreement is violated by either party then it is a requirement that teh offending party take the necessary steps to comply with it.
Just because I post content on the Internet I'm not forfeiting my right to anything. Every service you sign up for whether you pay for it or not is based on a legally binding agreement. Your email, your photos, your personal information, etc. The companies behind these services will sue you or force you to comply to any and all agreements you enter into with them. To forfeit your rights "because you've posted it on the Internet" is not only foolish, but extremely short sighted.
Flickr has a special API function call (http://www.flickr.com/services/api/flickr.photo...) This function call will tell an application author the current license status of any photo on the site. If the person who writes the application doesn't properly check the license status, and they aren't using the photo in a manner that would have would be considered fair use, then they are responsible for the infringement,not flickr.
IMHO, flickr has done everything within reason to help protect people's photos. Nothing stops someone from manually taking any publicly viewable photo from flickr if they really want to. I'm a software engineer during the day and let me tell you , if someone can view your image on the web, then they can save it. The whole spaceball.gif thing is a joke. (http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/08/download-fli...) Disabling right clicks? It's a joke too! You're just wasting your time. It's like locking the doors on a convertible! If you are paranoid about people stealing your photos, watermark them in a way that they are of no use to someone or don't put them online in the first place. People who put their photos inside of flash applications are also fooling themselves, it's trivially easy to take photos out of a flash application as well! (I do wish flickr supported watermarking as a site feature, that'd be something I'd love for them to do!)
The apps people write should check the license and only use the photo if the license allows it or it's consistent with fair use rights. Making the API more restrictive isn't the answer. Even if Flickr had no API, I could easily write my own web browser that could goto flickr, request a page the same way firefox does, parse the html, lookup the image locations, and go about my business. In the web industry this is called "scraping" and it puts a high load on web servers. This is one the reasons a lot of sites offer an API. People are going to be doing this stuff anyway, they just make it a bit easier so that when people do it, it doesn't break the site for everyone.
Flickr should quickly respond to complaints from photogs that 3rd party sites are illegally using their photos, but anything more than that, is going to far and going to cripple one of the things that makes flickr great.
..mike
Google does return thumbnails, and a the link to the original site on flickr is fine, but it's also presented within a top frame - where you can get to the medium size on flickr without the spaceball gif. I just wondered what the point of flickr's spaceball gif was really.
Thanks for the info and link. interesting.
* Copyright infringement is not theft, but the analogy is still apt.
also, fyi, thomas hawk has a post about this post along with his own long series of comments:
http://thomashawk.com/2008/07/how-every-flickr-...
SmugMug has similar tagging features, and a great API that actually obeys photo restrictions. They've even implemented OAuth.
SmugMug has an API just like flickr. If your photos are publicly viewable, you can get get them, no matter what service you use. If your photos are not publicly viewable, you can't get them on smugmug and you can't get them on flickr. There is no difference. The flickr API does not give anyone "special" access. If a photo is private or not viewable by the public, then the API doesn't provide any access to it, no matter what service you're using.
I just don't understand what would people would like flickr to do? They let you make your photos private, what more do you want? :-)
Thanks for a very thought-provoking post. These are indeed trying times for a massive number of creative people whose footing has been destabilized by this era of instant, zero-cost distribution of digital content on the internet.
As you mention in your article, I am the CEO of Myxer, and Myxer did indeed hatch a Flickr integration feature over the weekend. We quickly disabled the feature when we received complaints that the content we were featuring on Myxer was not being appropriately filtered based on the license information associated with each photo.
Myxer has been operating for over three years with a mission of making it easy to get content to mobile phones. One thing we've heard from our users time and again is that they want easier ways to get photos from sites like Flickr to their phones. While we apparently fumbled in the first implementation of integration, I would respectfully submit that it was never our intent to use content from Flickr users in any way contrary to the original intent of the poster.
One minor correction I would like to make to your post is that Myxer did not offer any Flickr content "for sale" on our site. Rather, Myxer displayed content from Flickr in our search results, with full attribution and direct links back to the hosting page on Flickr. Myxer allowed users to send the images to their phone's web browser free of charge (we're an ad-supported company).
For what it's worth, I am a huge fan of Flickr, and have long respected the community of creative people that make it what it is. While there may indeed be aspects of the Flickr API that make it prone to abuse, I have seen firsthand how the openness of the API has fostered innovation across a large spectrum of web companies.
I again apologize to all of those in the Flickr community who felt violated by our integration, and I assure you we will very carefully evaluate all of the details of our integration with third party sites going forward. I sincerely believe that beyond this temporary period of disruption lies a better future that brings amazing new opportunities to content creators such as yourself.
Best,
Myk Willis
Founder & CEO, Myxer
The fundamental right of every photographer with restrictive licensing terms such as "All Rights Reserved" is to regulate when and how their photographs are used. "Regulate" is a pretty formal term... in the end it's a matter of a photographer granting "permission". That's not all that complicated of a concept. We ask permission for things all the time.
Whether a fan of Flickr or not the manner in which you employed Flickr integration completely disregarded that will of each photographer with similar licensing preferences and went counter to the law. Pulling Flickr integration from your site was a wise move. I think it's fair to say you narrowly missed disaster with photographers filing copyright infringement lawsuits. While you narrowly missed getting tagged by several such lawsuits in this situation it is only a matter of time before Flickr or someone else suffers a different fate.
No disrespect meant to you. I selfishly think you should move your photos off Flickr entirely. I like the fact that I can use the Flickr APIs to display my photos even though they are All Rights Reserved. I like that people can find links to my photos in these third party apps. If someone decided to sell my photos, I'd blame the people doing the selling. I wouldn't blame the FLickr API, I wouldn't blame Google Image Search.
I WANT as many people as possible to see my photos.
I wish you all the best in control of your photos, but if you don't like Flickr, for my part I hope you find someplace else that you like better instead of screwing up the place I like. Since other places with stronger more draconian measures ALREADY exist, there's no need to screw up Flickr -- just go to those sites.
After all, its a a better internet if there are different sites for different purposes, yeah?
Hoping we can coexist...
And with all respect, this line in your message here and on Flickr: "it was never our intent to use content from Flickr users in any way contrary to the original intent of the poster. "
...betrays either a complete lack of the ability to read [clause 2 of the API - about 15mm down from the top of the document - makes very plain the responsibility of developers/keyholders to respect the permissions of each Flickr user]; or, perhaps, an unwillingness on you part to admit that you were trying to get away with something whilst hoping that no one would notice; lack of knowledge of copyright or a complete disregard for it.
@ Others: A few people here have again grought up the whole issue of 'if you dont want it stolen, borrowed or taken then dont put it on the web'. This is something we really need to work to get away from as a catch-all excuse for some people's behaviour. Despite using watermarks, despite putting low-rez content online, I still get ripped off by everyone from large newspapers down to small start-ups wanting some free content. Even if some of them asked if they could use my stuff that would better than how things are now. As people went online, their manners seemed to go offline.
Why are the choices as stark as 'if you want to use the web well, then prepare to get your work stolen left right and centre'. Or, 'well, dont put your work anywhere near the web'.
And @Mick O: what is draconian about me wanting a site I belong to and pay money to, to help me protect what is owned by me? I want as many people to see my pictures as possible too, it's my livelihood so the more people who see them the better for me. But as so many people have pointed out, if I care about not having them taken and mis-used by people, then I seem to be left with the option of not using the internet at all.
Very sad that it has come to: "stop f***ing moaning about your work getting ripped off, this is the internet... that's the way it is."
Anyhow, as long as the photos are still hosted on the Flickr website and haven't been copied to anyone's server, it's not a copyright violation.
Read Flickr's terms of service. You agreed to have those photos used in their searches, feeds and API. You don't like it, don't use it.
Use Adobe Bridge instead. It's 100% secure because it's not on the internets.
Thanks for taking the time to write such a well thought out post on the subject.
What I find interesting about this discussion (and the discussion over at Flickr) are those who say "don't put it online if you don't want it stolen". Do people tell musicians and bands not to create MP3s if they don't want their work stolen? Do people tell the movie houses that piracy is something that should be expected and tolerated because people CAN steal? I find it interesting that the artists (photographers) are attacked versus those stealing their work.
The internet has clearly created issues for all types of artists wishing to share their work online.
This posts brings much needed attention to some of the issues that photographers face online - Great Post!
I am not a Pro by any means, but that still does not mean that I don't value my work. A few that have replied to this post think "Well you posted what do you expect" attitude, I have to disagree with that. I posted because I found flickr to be a useful tool to organize my hobby. I also have made a few friends and received valuable feedback.
I thinks what it all comes down to is that flickr need to improve security settings. Have looked into watermarking services and at this moment in time I can't afford the cost for the amount of work that I have accumulated over the years.
I really think these are issues that need to be addressed by flickr, and I want to thank Jim for bringing it into the public light.
I greatly appreciate you taking the time to bring this to all our attention.
The internet; Flickr, and Smugmug are ways I share my work.
Like many photographers and artists I want my work out there for people to see/purchase.
The internet offers a huge market. However, I find it sad that there are those who are spouting the 'it's the internet - get over it'song. I value my work and that of others, it has meaning. We should not turn our heads to people or organizations who steal and simply accept it as 'the way it is'. I pay to belong to sites and hold them to their integrity.
The only way these organizations, websites will get the message is if people take a stand. Leaving a site won't scratch the surface, it's like going on strike with a conglomerate...strike one product and you're still buying another. Artists, photographers need to make their voice known to make change happen.
I use all available options to protect my work and trust that the companies and sites I work with do the same. If they don't I expect them to make it right. Flickr is what it is because of people like me and everyone that has posted images on Flickr and commented here. This is something they should take serious and address.
Snippet of whats in an RSS feed:
Treasure Island Night Shoot-16
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjwiacek/2644903703/
Mon, 7 Jul 2008 01:58:38 -0800
2008-07-06T23:11:51-08:00
nobody@flickr.com (gos81)
tag:flickr.com,2004:/photo/2644903703
Treasure Island Night Shoot-16
gos81
Why don't you just add a signature to each photo you upload. Granted someone can remove the signature but it will take some work and will probably not be worth their while cropping or removing the signature. If someone does remove the signature I would think you have grounds to sue them. Shouldn't that put an end to flickr blatantly allowing the rip off of photographers?
Flickr ought to adopt an intentional 'opt-in' procedure for enabling levels of sharing. You should have to specify if you want family, then friends, then contacts, then everyone to view your images, and at which resolution, and you should have to choose to remove any rights, rather than having to choose to have them.
Adding a watermark feature such as Krista Neher mentions above is something else they could do, and again have it be something that people could turn off if they wanted to. I don't think that would harm Photrade which has a number of other positive features going for it.
Developers must act responsibly, but Flickr must police! They are ultimately responsible. It's too bad, but it sounds like it may take a class action suit to get them in line.
I value Flickr as a way to let people find out about my photography and as a way to find out about the work of others. However, as valuable as this is, it is not valuable enough to get me to simply give away my work for free to whomever for whatever.
I haven't gotten to the point where I'm removing my work from Flickr yet, but some time ago I switched to smaller versions of my photos and began adding watermarks across the face of the photos.
Dan
What really is the solution here? Can we share anything at all, without worrying about some kind of copyright violation?
If your image is part of the public Flickr image pool (not restricted to Friends and/or Family or being private completely) it is easy to grab a copy like the services do that track the explored photos, which - as far as I know - is a process of analyzing the explore calendar over and over again without any API call.
In my optioion this problem won't be solved with a technological approach. Watermarking, limiting the size, denouncing the copyright violators and restricting permissions will be the only way to deter image theft.
A minor technical detail: You don't need a developer account or API key to access the RSS feeds. The feeds are just another representation of the website compatible with aggregators like Bloglines, Google Reader or Outlook.
Apologies for my English, it is not my first language.
Jim : Not only images, this RSS predicament extends to the whole blog world as well. There are so many sites which simply use the RSS feed of any sites, put it on theirs, put ads and earn revenue out of it! or if nothing, at least they build traffic for themselves.
What makes Dave Winer's FlickrFan a particular concern is that the files are extracted from the enclosures to be saved to a local computer. That is extending the normal use of RSS Feeds. One day I hope to find out in more detail how Dave Winer actually pulls high resolution imagery from his FlickrFan feeds. Perhaps some day he'll take me up on my request to talk about it.
As for flickrfan, I havent seen it myself, but I do know that it's quite easy to "calculate" the URL of any flickr picture's larger size simply by observing the logic flickr uses in generation of its URL's for all sizes.
I guess that we should first see whether Flickr is to blame for the situation. My take: yes, they are to blame - for having created a platform with the goal to distribute as many photos to as many locations as possible. That alone is not a problem. The problem is that they did not offer suitable tools to hand over control over the distribution to photographers. They do not offer suitable tools to protect images (e.g. by automatically watermarking them). They are strictly following an opt-out model, so that virtually anyone uses the default settings (which are very good for Flickr, but not good for the photographer). So, problems galore here.
Second, now that we think that Flickr is to blame, is there a resolution possible? Well, not too many. Certainly one can pull the images from Flickr (I did that, and I am quite happy about it). If you can not do this (for whatever reason), then you should at least protect your images with watermarks all over the place. Tag the images with a unique identifier, ideally in the image caption. This will help you to find infringers and go after them individually. If the problem continues to occur, we all should wait for decision on the Viacom-Youtube case. Should Viacom win (which is more likely given the recent rules ordered by the judge), we do have a valid case to check whether Flickr might be responible for infringing actions by their "partners" (API users) in a similar fashion as Youtube is responsible for the actions by their users. (OTOH, if Viacom loses this case, then forget about the protection of any digital content, be it photos, books, videos, or songs.)
Let's face it - the value of an image goes straight to zero once published on the Internet. The situation is really bad, and the quick fix to this is to pull the images from Flickr unless you get serious business from having your images up there.
1] If your photo is cc licensed, Flickr takes the line that if you allow people to use your photo under a cc license by definition you're willing to allow them to use the largest version available, even if your account settings clearly state otherwise, and
2] programs using the API are able to download image sizes which you have not made available to the public [and this is separate from the issue of whether the program is licensed to do so]. This is a clear case of a situation where a program using the API is able to get access to content that a scraper could not.
I think people either don't understand [or more likely don't care] that when photographers say "all rights reserved" they actually mean it. The fact that photos are misused on the internet does not ipso facto mean that misuse should be facilitated.
Flickr's API has gaps in it you could shoot a bus through. Plus, and this for me is the bottom line, it is assisting people in wholesale unauthorised redistribution.
And what do we get from Flickr? Three days of silence.
Goodness only knows what is going to happen when/if Microsoft purchases Yahoo.
Yahoo/Flickr does what it considers best for its bottom line, and if it has to disregard the user's wishes, so be it. I lost a lot of enthusiasm for Flickr then (the users are great, the company is not), and this is not surprising to me at all.
Clearly if people mark pictures/sizes as not for download/viewing, they intend to have this respected by API-using applications too. If Flickr feeds this stuff to them, it is clearly because they have other priorities than their users' wishes.
Recently a website run by Heineken Music has been taking a heap of "All Rights Reserved" from photographers through the flickr API - this is an example of a major multinational taking photographers work for commercial use.
I and a number of other photographers have put in claims for payment to Heineken and very soon after the website was shut down.
Maybe a petition from flickr users might force some changes from the flickr management.
I never understood why Flickr did this as this can not be a technical issue. Rather, I guess that they are not too comfortable with copyright information being present in the images that are widely distributed.
http://thomashawk.com/2008/07/how-every-flickr-...
They need to put into their API code that will prevent sharing through the API of copyrighted pictures.
They need to make sharing opt-in rather than opt-out.
They ought to add in watermarking as an option people can turn on.
They could even add in an option for watermarking for API sharing.
None of this would be too difficult to code.
It wouldn't solve the problem of people pulling images from their browser cache (apart from watermarking), but it would cut down substantially on the massive sharing via the API of copyrighted images without permission or remuneration.
I like Flickr. I like being able to see other's work and get their comments on mine. I'm not a highly skilled photographer (yet). I only capture amazing things when I see them and have my camera with me (which I try to do most of the time). I'm not the kind of photographer who can look at an ordinary scene and create art from it. Someday, maybe, it is a nice goal.
But I still would like to have my fair share from my work. I would love being able to pay for the hobby. A lot of people are in this category.
It would simply be "due diligence" for Yahoo/Flickr to make the above changes, protecting them from a class action lawsuit which could be devastating and certainly could deliver Yahoo into the hands of Microsoft (which not liking monopolies, and not preferring Internet Explorer, I don't want to see happen).
The whole bunch of you remind me of the music industry executives - they, too, are losing "market share" or "sales" through internet sharing and the more intelligent musicians are starting to notice that they can't make money through records anymore, but through life concerts. The very same will have to be true for writers or photographers or anyone else who makes something digital. They need to find a (new?) way to make money from the experiences with the product or from personalization. Wedding or event photography springs to mind, photo journalism that sells unique photos right after the things happens and so on.
I know this doesn't really have much to do with the Flickr API but isn't that the underlying issue? Free sharing is the future, no matter if content creators (me included) want it or not. And it's going to get easier and easier and more common every single day. "My" generation and younger (mostly younger. I'm old enough to remember 9600 baud modems) is growing up with an abundance of free of seemingly free content and making money from content the "old fashioned" way is going to go away. Even if Flickr is adding watermarking to their API or going from opt-out to opt-in.
Some of the comments you're taking issue with are also great, in particular, those from people who love flickr for its ability to get their work in front of a lot of people all over the world so fast. You're right, if flickr/yahoo does it's job, we can share safely. That's the ideal. Getting there will be bumpy and there are bound to be problems. This API issue is one of them and thanks for pointing it out.
There is always going to be tension between the great leverage of sharing work on the internet with all the good that comes with it and not using the internet and instead sitting on prints which will only been seen by others in shows or in books or in magazines. I've been an artist long enough to remember the days when no one could see my work until I had a show and I only had a few meaningful shows a year.
Now, no matter what my medium, I can share my work every day with a lot of people and if I'm skilled at social networking using tools like flickr and other sites like it, I have a very powerful lever where I didn't have one before.
I've been using flickr since it started and have had photography and writing on the web since there was a web. I've had a lot of work stolen over the years and I feel terrible when it happens and do my best to tighten things up and communicate with the entities that are doing the stealing. However, the number of people who can now see my work, some of whom are now customers of mine, is much greater than it would be if I were relying solely on analog tools for sharing: shows, books, magazines. If I quit flickr in a huff, the biggest loss will be for me. I'll lose customers, friends, and a web tool that while not perfect, allows me to share my work with a very big audience.
I am far from a professional photographer ergo what someone choses to do with my meager submissions is of little consequence but for the professionals well that action is unforgivable and should result in legal and monitary action.
As to watermarking, there are serious concerns for me and other people that find the marks outright garish and detracting from the picture.
I think there is however a logic in suggesting to flickr that they embed three or four bits of info in the images they serve: at a minimum I would suggest the name/username of the poster, the url to the poster on flickr/whatever website the user specifies, © whatever year the photo was first uploaded, and details of whatever CC license is applicable.
If people really want watermarking I would suggest that they do it themselves [as Jim and I and countless others already do]. Be prepared however for a fair amount of abuse from flickr-ites who think borders and watermarks etc. interfere with their viewing/appreciation of your work.
Is there a thread in the thousands of flickr forums discussing this? It would be useful to have an 'official' flickr thread where flickr staff could [or could not] contribute, comment etc., as that seems to be their preferred communication mechanism.
Yep, we photographers appear to be a bunch of whiners. But the problem is only partly related to a changing market. The complaints are mostly centered around the fact that our work is stolen more often, thanks to sites like Flickr. Yep, this influences the market, too, but you can not compete with thieves. The consequence of this rapidly changing market: mediocrity. As professional photographers can not make a living from their work any longer, they will look for other jobs. The void will be filled by average photos by consumers. (Then again, Flickr is evidence that there are very good consumers out there.)
@Vieira:
I do not buy the bandwidth argument. How much KB does EXIF information add to the average image? 2? 5? 10? Neglectible given the huge sizes of the orginals.
@Dave:
My cameras include automatically not only the serial numbers of the bodies, but also the author information in clear text. Very convenient.
BTW, ovfficial discussion can be found here - http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/76282/
First, thank you for the blog entry. I suspect Flickr had bitten off more than they could chew, or would be willing to chew regarding image security, so I never put any of mine on there. I wrote my own code and run it on my own site instead. I don't get the traffic, but then again I don't have the hassles either.
Yahoo and Google and Microsoft don't care about our copyrights, because helping manage our rights doesn't make then nearly as much money as allowing others to get to the images. Their token nods to supplying some sort of IP security are really only there to make a lawyer happy, and maybe to deflect some of the damage if they get hauled into court in a class-action lawsuit.
For years I've split my time between full-time software development and running my own full-time photography company. Recently I was given the opportunity to help found a new internet community, only it's designed from the top down for secured access - at the tightest level only those you allow in will be able to see your work. One of the things we're implementing is a photo-gallery.
In our weekly staff meeting yesterday I talked about the brewing storm of IP/rights issues for photographers, and the impending closing of S2F.com. One of the things I want to do is gather ideas and hear your brainstorms for what would make a perfect hosting and image-displaying site for photographers.
I live the same nightmares, have fought all the same battles with infringement and theft, and want to build a site *I* want to use. Our team is interested in hearing your ideas, so feel free to forward them to my gmail acct... 8si.greg at gmail dot com. You can figure out how to unobscure that address. :-)
I thought I was SAFE, yet, I have experienced two types of theft …
One day I rec’d a Flickr message alerting me to the fact that a photo of mine, of MY child, was being used as avatar on an Orkut profile. She, being a protective Mom & victim herself, provided me the link & much to my surprise there was my little girl being exposed as some other person with a fake name & tons of friends! Argh … what was I to think?
“Is this for real?†I thought? Totally confused wondering how in the world did this happen! Looking at my daughter’s photo flipped & PS’d with someone else’s name was a surreal moment!
Never did I think that this could happen to me because of Flickr’s permissions, allowing or not allowing downloads, etc., I completely trusted them. My permissions were set to NOT allow downloading. I felt I was posting on a SAFE website … right? Owned by Yahoo … a reliable company, right? WRONG!
Though I was aware of the possibility that a small file could be created by right click/copy, I felt that a thumbnail, in no way, would be large enough for anyone to PS successfully. I was baffled.
It wasn’t until some “photo artist†contacted me with wanting to share numerous versions of his creations made form one of my other photos, again my daughter, that he told me he simply made a SCREEN PRINT … one that could be manipulated in PS creating a massive size file!
It all made sense ... I was convinced, even with today’s technology, you cannot trust photo websites! There was absolutely no way to protect any of my photos posted on the Internet unless I controlled who was able to see my photos; therefore I removed my children’s photos from being public to only be available to those I allow as “Friends & Family†… an option on Flickr, which I highly recommend for all other parent/photographers to do.
I am very appreciative that I experienced what happened to me for it made me all the more computer savvy than I already thought I was. I use to think how great it was to share my children’s photos allowing anyone to see & appreciate not only my talent but, how adorable they are … every parent feels that way, I’m sure. I thought, what harm is there in others looking … it’s not like they could do anything with a thumbnail.
Boy, was I naïve … if it wasn’t for bratty kids on Orkut stealing my children’s photos to play their silly innocent FAKE game, & then the “photo artist†telling me about SCREEN PRINTS, I would have never become aware starting to think & wonder, nor will I ever know what creep has large files of my children’s photos saved on their computer!
AND TO THINK, NOW WE UNDERSTAND THAT FLICKR IS ALLOWING THIS!
@Joy Elizabeth Effie: If it can be displayed, it can be copied. As much as Flickr tries to block theft, a user can always hit Print Screen and copy what's on the screen. The story you told creeps the hell out of me, and I'm sorry you've been through this. But the only thing that can be done to prevent this is setting the permission level of your photos to family only. Don't leave it open to public view, it's a compromise you might not want to make. That said, I'm heading to my own account now to turn some of my currently public photos family only... I didn't know such creeps were going that low on the internet.
Basically you're proving my point - pro photographer can't make their money with stock/generic nature/landscape photography anymore, because there are thieves and amateurs who are willing to give away 'good enough' work for free. (Just like an MP3 is lower quality than a good record - but it is good enough.) So they will look for other jobs - either completely outside photography or within other areas of photography where there is still money to be made.
Re:the EXIF data - the tools they are using strip the exif data by default. Given what a small proportion of their customers care about this feature they might just have given the "turning on exif for smaller files" a low priority. A company/project their size needs to prioritize tasks this way - a simple economic cost/benefit calculation.
@Joy: Every single web page can be used in the way you're describing it. "Showing a file" means "copying to the computer" - just now when you opened this page, it copied all the content to your computer. This is how the technology behind the internet/web works and there will always be ways to exploit that. And nothing, ever, will be really safe on the web. That's how the web works, not just Flickr. Google Picasa, the old Yahoo photo, even "private" Facebook photos.
At the bottom of your flickr page is the RSSfeed link. If Flickr adds an opt-out setting for that then I think this problem will be a bit sorted. I agree they must have control on the APIs.
I suggested sometime ago about adding a program to add unique identifier to the images data and some tracking capability. Since that is too advanced for others to comprehend they just said something that basically say go hide your photos in the cupboard. Stock companies already used this technology, it already exist, why not make use of it?
Anyway, my answer to any stolen photo now is to send an invoice with the proof that my photo is on their pages. None paid me yet but they immediately took off my shots (after being blogged of course). Also, watermarking.
I am a fan of www.flickr.com/photos/shutterblog/ on suing ppl who steals her photos? she rocks!
Is it fool proof? I don't know for sure, but it sure comes across as a company that is looking out for it members, unlike flickr.
Basically upload the image via the save for web feature in Photoshop which is a smaller file then the original. Select a Colour profile specific to the Web and at a size of say 1000 max pixels (either Hight or Width) and upload
Your photo is safe, it is fine for web viewing and yes granted people may still download, but what they can do with that is minimal at best. It is not the original file, nor is it Hi-Res and alas if it were used for printing you would get little from it.
The original file then sits on your HD safe and out of the hands of flickr and anyone looking to steal it.
Prints? What the fuck, flickr is hardly the best option, so really in my opinion no one should be looking to use this anyway, i mean shit for the same shit quality you might as well pop down to boots or some other store that have those print machines and get some prints done of that.
No, If your looking to sell prints you would use a much better source.
That was my "work around" to avoid any mishaps with my photos on flickr, I have since just removed them all entirely.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foreverdigital/265...
If you look closely, you'll even see Heather in this video. She's busy too apparently.
It's shame that they can't just create an enabler that simply prevents API's from "stealing" photos. Just leaving up to the API creator and hiding behind T's & C's is ridiculous.
I do hope most people attempting to discover the provenance of an image would think to check the GIF or JPG comment field, or run the 'strings' program on the file. But I've no idea how well the real world matches up to my wish.
Nice not having to Deal with Pesky People like GETTY IMAGES Pawing Me + trying to shove outrageous scads of $$$ Moolah for my Lovely Photographs********
BILLY WARHOL NOT FOUND!!
TAKE ME TO THE KITTENS!!*************
;PPP
The reason this comes into play with the Orphan Works legislation currently under consideration is this: if someone gets that EXIF-removed file they no longer have any way of telling that it's my image - it's an "Orphan," and now they can use it any way they want and I've no legal option to sue for damages.
I understand that there are a great number of people who don't care - they take pictures for fun, share them, give them away and have no thought of ever "owning" them. That's fine, they can give their stuff away all they want. All we're asking for is that those of us who *do* care are given the courtesy that the copyright law provides.
Despite the fact that copyright and IP are relics of a bygone, pre-internet age and need updating, they are all we have. If a company gives me the choice of opting in to certain restrictions of usage to display my work on a website I have paid to use, those wishes should be respected. Flickr just throw up their hands and say 'Not us, its the thirdparties who use our API". Whilst they work in new technologies, their excuses for failing to deliver a service are as old as the hills:"Not our fault mate, it was him".
And then we have everyone around us saying; "Dont like it? Dont use the internet."
The orphaning of images by stripping out data: oh, how I hope that comes around to bite Flickr on the ass. But, as usually happens, these corporations are so embedded into the lobbies and corridors of power [we live in a corpocracy in all but name], that they will sway Congress I am sure, to sthrow out the bill or change it to favour them. Citing 'the changed landscape and concept of ownership and intellectual property that has occured with the internet" as their reason.
All the while they will continue to make money with their corporations, hoovering up and re-distributing content they havent had to pay a newsroom full of journalists or studio full of photographers to create. Superb solution ... for them.
I am all for sharing and for power to be given to the average man in the street to contribute. But, there is a difference [and I am not making an elitist statement, it is just a fact] between some people who have trained their whol lives to do something and people doing it themselves at home. There are some very talented individuals who have had their light hidden under a bushell who have come to the fore with the blog and photo-sharing revolution. But, there is a lot of dross too. Professionals are still required. But how do we make a living?
street shooter who has a lot to learn. And I'm new
to Flickr. To all of you people who are either pro
shooters or, because of this article have given up
on Flickr, have any of you ever thought about
watermarking your images with something like
Picmarkr? I just googled the subject and I found
Picmarkr.
Many of you in this thread stated that you like
the Flickr community though the AFI matter is
the straw the broke the camels back. Because
of that some of you shut down your Flickr
account. Well what about watermarking your
images with Picmarkr? I've never watermarked
an image before. But after reading this
article I think I better get up to speed on
it pronto. Please let us know the pros and
cons of using something like Picmarkr to
watermark your Flickr images.
http://picmarkr.com/
PicMarkr does 10 pics maximum in one sweep. The first ten I tried to do, using an image overlay and not a simple text one [which is very easy to edit out] took me 15 minutes to get right. 130 x 15 minutes. That's 30 hours.
Piknik, the inbuilt tools for Flickr, is even less intuitive, more bogged down in its swanky Flash interface than offering real tools. Bulk watermarking is only available in the Pro version: $24.95 per year.
Flickr's replace function was broken all weekend.
Bulk replacing of images is also not possible.
Flickr needs a basic, watermark adding tool in the Uploadr. Should have been there ages ago.
And moreover, if you were serious about sharing your photos discreetly, you wouldn't even have put them online at all. The internet has not been given boundaries yet, and of course it is human nature to want to circumvent and break these boundaries.
At least put a watermark next time, that way you can trace your photos more easily if you suspect that the rest of the world is using them without your permission.
The frequent response amounting to "If you don't want it stolen, don't put it not he Internet" strikes me as similar to the logic of "If you don't want your child kidnapped and raped, don't send them to school". Theft is criminal. Criminals, ncluding accomplices who aid them, should be prosecuted. The rest of us shouldn't have to cower in our homes, or stay off the Internet, to accomodate the crooks.
These examples show how easy technology has made it for companies to ignore the rights of content creators, including both professional and amateur photographers. Congress is about to make those mistakes a way to permanently separate all of us from copyright protection of our works with the Orphan Works Act of 2008.
Here are some sample photography industry statements opposing the proposed bill:
http://www.asmp.org/news/spec2008/orphan_update...
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2008/0...
Please pass on news of this pending legislation and encourage family and friends to contact their elected representatives by email using the automated form at this link:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issue...
http://blog.flickr.net/en/2008/07/08/the-flickr...
Ok, if you have anything stolen, it's now your fault for leaving it there, you cant do anything about it, you just have to accept that.
Does that seem perfectly fine for you?
_____
This is something that has really pissed me off. I origianlly joined Flickr because it was somewhere to put my photos so i could show them to people easily, get feedback on them from other people, comment on other people's images and see other images that interest me.
This also reminds me of a case that happened recently where someone was taking loads of images from flickr, putting them onto clocks and selling them on ebay. I'm not sure what happened about it, but the people whose images were being used were pretty annoyed.
If I have an image on flickr, and the url of that image is http://www.flickr.com/foo.jpg (say it's my photo) and then someone else goes to their own blog and says: "I saw this image on flickr, it's awesome" and then links to my flickr photo like this: <img src="http://flickr.com/foo.jpg"> Is that stealing? 100% NO. They didn't copy my photo, they linked to it, and included it on their page, but they still referenced my original photo. If I take the photo off of flickr, I take the photo off of their web page. Does that make sense? Now, if they saved a copy of my photo and put it on their web page, that's 100% completely different, as they took my content. But as long as they simply link against my image, I'm ok with that.
@alfie: Putting unwatermarked photos online is more like saying "‘well, if you didnt want you car stolen, why did you go out driving and park it in the street leave the doors open and the keys in the ignition with a giant sign that said please drive me away?†You have to take some responsibility for your own stuff.
I think the best things for you to do if you worried is to 1) watermark everything and 2) not use flickr. Flickr was really established as a place for sharing photos, I understand you want to maintain control over your images, and that's your right. But why not use a site that caters more to protecting (however futile) your images. I don't think its that flickr doesn't care, I think its that the features you want are contrary to flickr's design goals. I hate to use another analogy, but knowing this about flickr is like Metallica putting their music on Napster and then complaining people are downloading it illegally. At least in my view.
"Inline linking involves placing a line of HTML on your site that so that your webpage displays content directly from another site. We now commonly refer to this practice as embedding. For example, many bloggers embed videos from YouTube on their blogs to illustrate a point or initiate discussion. While there is some uncertainty on this point, a recent case from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that inline linking does not directly infringe copyright because no copy is made on the site providing the link; the link is just HTML code pointing to the image or other material. See Perfect 10, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146 (2007)."
I knew this had been reviewed before. It's legal, flat out.
I dont think so. Metallica didn't put their music on Napster and neither did most other music acts. Napster users put Metallica's music on Napster.
Even if it were, that's as logical as saying if you don't want to get hit on, then don't be a woman.
Note that Flickr claims to be pro-photographer and claims to have protections in place so that a photographer can mark their work as Private. The complaints arise when Flickr's API doesn't match the rest of their claims.
@mike "you have to take some responsibility for yourself"
the photographers DID take responsibility, by using the very "Private" flag that Flickr offered.
Here is an example: I have marked one of my photos with photo_id: 2468587348 as being private.
Here is the flickr API call to get information about that photo:
http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?method=fli...
Get a blank page? That's because the flickr API will not provide info about private photos if the the person who is making the API call is not the owner of the photo and they do not know the photo's secret value.
Now compare this with the api info request for photo 2468588282, this photo is completely public.
http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?method=fli...
As you can clearly see the API returns no information for private photos.
See? This WHOLE thread makes no sense. 1) The courts say embedding other peoples images on your own web page is fine without their permission because you aren't copying their work, simply referencing a copy that they has already put online by the copyright holder (see one of my earlier comments citing a summary of the 9th circuit court of appeals' ruling). 2) The flickr API doesn't provide any access to content that it's not supposed to (as you can see for yourself above). People are getting all up in arms about something that they don't fully understand. Sigh.
-----
I know that some people who have commented make their living off of their images, and they need to fight to protect that. And I completely sympathize. In the software industry (where I work) this happens all the time. However, times are changing, people's definitions of copyrights and expectations of fair use are changing. Look at what happened to the music biz and hollywood with the DMCA.
The DMCA was supposed to keep those industries safe from pirates. What happened? The law went into effect and they started suing their customers. Sales plumet, illegal file sharing goes through the roof, and an entire generation grows up thinking the music biz is evil and ready to pirate mp3's without a second thought. Would you buy a CD from a company who tried to sue you? The harm these antiquated views has caused, have cost the recording industry more money than the original file sharing ever would have.
Now compare this withwhat bands like radiohead have done with their music. They've ditched the label and started giving their music away for free and asking their fans to pay whatever they think its worth. The band hasn't released how much they took in from this, but estimates say the band made more from this "donation" experiment than they would have made if they went through a traditional record label.
Now I'm not suggesting people give their photos away for free, but a band like radiohead isn't fighting the way culture is evolving, they're moving along with it. They're going to succeed because they are keeping their options open. I'm simply suggesting we do the same.
(and detailed) assessment of PicMarkr.
Is there a good watermarking program
one could use on images that are stored
on Flickr? One that you would recommend?
I'm not going to leave Flickr just yet.
Heck, I just joined Flickr. I have
approximately 400 pictures I need
to watermark.
Thank you
http://ipii.ru
how when you right click on an image
of theirs you're blocked from stealing
it. I'm not sure what that blocking
technique is called. Whatever it's
called, here's hoping that it can't
be circumvented by a savvy computer
user. A thief might be able to get around
something like that by going to 'view'
and then 'source'. I'm not sure though...
Firstly thank you for bringing this to my (and others) attention. I checked to see if any of my pix were on the MyxterTones.com site and I couldn't find any, that may well be because the Flickr link has been taken down now?
However,in the past three weeks I have found a number of my pics on other peoples Blogs, lifted directly from Flickr, and for obvious reasons it made me angry. So much so that it has been my intention to close my Flickr account. However, before I take the final step, can I ask you please (and I mean this most sincerely and not in anyway facetiously way) why have you not closed your Flickr account? Your pictures are truly excellent, far better than mine, and yet with all your knowledge of the technicalities of API's and RSS feeds etc, (I know very little), you still haven't closed your Flickr account.
Whatever your reply to this is, it is immaterial, because I am closing my account whatever. I'm sick of all the controversy and the value of the CC licences etc.
and the basic insecurity of the site.
Regards
Mark G.
http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2008/01/28/your-pr...
http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2008/02/08/big-pri...
This ducks the whole, "but it's not the same as physical theft because you still have it," counterargument, and more closely mirrors what's being complained about here.
To spell out what I think Nishant is saying for anyone still thinking access=permission ...
If the exhibition has a catalog, and a viewer takes the catalog home and cuts out a small picture of one of the works from the catalog to stick on his desk, that might be considered fair use -- as an artist, I'd rather they bought a full-size print from me, but hey, I can't really bitch too loudly about their cutting up their souvenir instead ... at least not without starting to sound like the RIAA. Similarly, I won't get too upset if somebody downloads/screencaps one of my photos to stick on their laptop because they like looking at it.
But if a viewer takes a catalog, cuts out the catalog picture of my work, scans or photocopies that, and then markets a line of coffee mugs and mousepads with my image on them, never having asked my permission nor having paid me to license the image, yes, I'll be upset about that. Unless, of course, I'd already decided that was okay and posted a sign saying, "I'm not trying to make a buck, just show off my work, go ahead and make copies". And similarly again, if somebody grabs one of my images off the web, whether from Flickr or my personal web site or anywhere else, and uses it on their merchandise or in an ad campaign, without obtaining my permission first, I'll be rightly ticked off. Unless, of course, I'd posted it with a Creative Commons (or similar) license giving them permission ahead of time to do what they were going to do.
Now if somebody is truly determined, they're going to sneak a camera past the door guard and copy my work as soon as nobody's looking, or they're going to copy it out of the catalog if the small version is all they need. I can't physically stop them, only persue remedies in court afterward. (I can try to discourage them, and I can make it more difficult, but I can't prevent them utterly.)
Telling me, "You know they can rip you off if you display your work, so why show it if you're going to complain," really isn't a useful, helpful, or even very meaningful answer here.
Now the issue at hand is the complaint that Flickr -- the gallery owner -- has made it _easier_than_usual_ for visitors to copy our work ... more importantly, if I'm understanding the article correctly, they're not making it any harder to copy the all-rights-reserved works than to copy the some-rights-freel-given works. I do see room for debate as to how much of that is Flickr's responsibility and how much rests solely on the shoulders of the folks taking the copies (though in any case I also understand the folks saying, "whether it's the gallery's moral or legal responsibility or not, their not trying makes them not the right gallery for me") ... but the whole, "It's the Internet; give up and shut up," meme is -- in the context of this discussion -- a bogon. It's not helpful.
Should the gallery owner at least _try_ to enforce the "no making copies without the artist's permission" rule by at least erecting a token barrier so that infringers can't claim their actions were accidental or from ignorance? At the very least, they could eject the infringing visitors who've gotten caught (revoke their API access).
It _is_ a matter to bring up _elsewhen_ (as is the "can we find a more Internet-age-suitable business model?", which is an interesting question), but not in the "oh just shut up already" manner in which it's being used in some comments here.
By the way, if you think that you can embed a flickr picture on any page you wish and claim that it's entirely legal I think you'll find that you've misread the situation. If you embed a picture you may not be making a copy of it, but you are still potentially misusing it by not respecting the licensing terms under which it was made available to view, and misuse is the core concern in this thread. If you embed a flickr photo of mine [all of which are all rights reserved] in a page with ads on it I would be perfectly within my rights to sue you for misuse, licensing fees etc..
You can sue someone for anything you want. It might get thrown out, but as an American, you have the right to sue anyone for any reason. The court will decide if your case has merit, that's the court's job! It looks like Google was sued over this very thing. In comment 134 I referenced something I posted in comment 122, which I'll paste down below.
Now I'm not a lawyer, but reading the summary of the 9th circuit's ruling, you actually wouldn't have much of a case. And while our judicial system is built on case law which can change over time, I highly doubt another court would reverse the 9th circuit's ruling on this matter. Read it, and if you read something different from it, let me know. However when I read it, it seems pretty clear that embedding someone else's image, even with all rights reserved, is NOT copyright infringement. Do you read it differently?
Please note, I'm only trying to be a voice of reason here. If someone can show me steps to access a flickr photo that is properly marked as private, I'd be happy to agree with everyone that flickr is not doing things properly and will help contact them to make sure they do it right. I have yet to see any proof there is a problem in the first place. And that proof or steps to repeat the flaw are what I'm after. All my experiments to try and link to a private photo have proved unsuccessful.
Here is my post from comment 122:
Quoted from “http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/linking-copyrighted-materialsâ€:
“Inline linking involves placing a line of HTML on your site that so that your webpage displays content directly from another site. We now commonly refer to this practice as embedding. For example, many bloggers embed videos from YouTube on their blogs to illustrate a point or initiate discussion. While there is some uncertainty on this point, a recent case from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that inline linking does not directly infringe copyright because no copy is made on the site providing the link; the link is just HTML code pointing to the image or other material. See Perfect 10, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146 (2007).â€
It depends on how the person using your photo used it. Did they give a critique of the photo? Then go ahead, take him to court and watch yourself lose and get hit with court costs. The "fair use doctrine, codified by the Copyright Act of 1976 as 17 U.S.C. § 107, permits some copying and distribution without permission of the copyright holder or payment to same." Critiques and reviews, are considered fair use.
So this person would be protected by case law in the perfect 10 ruling I mentioned above, and then AGAIN by fair use law if they provided an honest review, commentary, or critique of your photo. It'd have to be a real critique, and not someone saying "Uhm, it's a good photo." You'd have to prove they embedded your photo on their web page for the explicit purpose of profiting from your work AND that their critique/review is not genuine.
At least, that's the way the fair use laws and relevant case law reads to me. But I love a good debate, so if you can show me case law or US code that differs, I'm open to hearing it.
issue. And what I found out, (and as many of you already know,)some members want Flickr to install a watermarking tool
while others are dead set against it thinking that a
watermark on an image would be an eyesore. There is a
forum regular there who goes by the name of 'Coleen'.
(Colleen?) Coleen gives out a ton of advice. It appears
as if Coleen is a Flickr rep. In one of Coleen's posts,
Coleen said, "What's the point of watermarking an
image? Even if a watermark is placed in the dead
center of said image, I or anyone else could easily
remove the watermark. It only takes 10 minutes to
remove it." 10 minutes? Wow. And then I went to
Getty's sight and I see where they use a watermark
as a security measure. I guess the Getty people feel
good about using watermarks.
BTW, I'm not all that familiar with Getty. I saw it
mentioned a few times here and there and I got
the feeling that they were the Rolls Royce of
stock photos. So I went to their site and I saw
a lot of great photos. But I also saw a lot of
boring, lackluster, run of the mill snapshots.
I guess I was wrong about the Rolls Royce analogy?
I read your post. It may be your opinion that the API violates your individual TOS...however that's just what it is...an opinion. And you know what they say about opinions...they're like @$$holes...everyone has one and they're all full of crap.
Now, a fact about this is that the photo distributed through the API is not being hosted ANYWHERE else but on Flickr's servers. Not a legal violation of TOS OR Copyright.
If you really still think you have a legal leg to stand on, sue them. Put your money where your mouth is.
But, what it boils down to is this: Don't like it, don't use it.
If this was a camera store, and you didn't like the way they did business, why would you still be a patron of that store?
You don't like the way Flickr does business. Why do you still use Flickr? This confuses me.
It's a matter of logic, Jim. Not principle.
i.e. if any of my photos have been taken from the flickr site and used for any other purpose, how can I tell ?
Hasn't every download got a unique reference number that is attached to the file , like every PC adress, that is traceable ?
Secretly I'd be rather pleased if I found out that a photo of mine was deemed good enough to be used in mass production. But I'd want some sort of recompense if somebody else was making money out of my work. But how do I find out ?
I'm an engineer not a computer or copyright lawyer so forgive me if my questions are niaive.
not sure if this link had been posted here.. if so - here it is aagain...
http://www.flickr.com/account/prefs/downloads/
and set the 'Who can download your stuff' setting to 'Only you'.
So, no matter what Flickr does, as long as your photos are uploaded there or anywhere else on the internet, people can copy them without your permission. Just press "Print Screen."
I could not agree with you more. I work for a photo website (www.photrade.com) and we discovered this need and have been working to build a site to help photographers share, protect and make money from their photos. We are working on creating innovative technologies that will help keep your photos safe. To date we have launched custom watermarking (automatic - you set the watermark up once) and we disable right-clicking (you get a blank image). We will be releasing an entire protection suite over the next few months - this is only the first step.
We believe that you should be able to share your photos on your terms, so we also allow you to sell digital rights and prints of your image. Our goal is to give image users a simple solution to purchase images and generate awareness around image theft.
We are currently in a closed beta - if any of you are interested in checking us out send me an email (krista at photrade dot com) and I would be happy to send you an invite for our site.
We would love to hear your feedback on how we can create a photo site that would really meet your needs.
- Krista (VP Marketing, Photrade)
How Flickr could make the world a better place for copyright
An excerpt:
@Joy -- "right-click" is built into the browser. Reality is that if it shows up on a screen it can be copied. Get over it.
To others in general -- The biggest travesty about this is that as an API developer I should not have to make sure that I enforce Flickr's contract with YOU. I expect Flickr to do their job and filter from my application any images that my application should not access.
@Tupart -- It is really pretty easy. Any number of developer tools available for Firefox and IE let you see the image. Basically what Smugmug did was make the image a "background image". Pretty weak protection -- if anyone was counting on that .. forget it.
I also agree that it shouldnt really be your job to enforce the Flickr contract with photographers, just to follow ALL the rules of the API, whicha lot of third-parties dont; such as leaving out the licence code. But, yes, Flickr should be doing a whole lot more to keep their API from being misused although third-parties do have a responsibility in this too; i.e. not to misuse it. You may not be but plenty of them are.
Copyright matters, I think (there are folks who disagree).
As others have pointed out (though I get the impression that not everyone is quite understanding the message), if a user can see an image, then they _have_ the image and they can copy the image. (If nothing else, they can pluck it out of their browser's cache.) As I've pointed out (at least I meant to), no security, including Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), is bulletproof; so even if you try to force users to view your photos in a plug-in you supply that enforces DRM, as long as they have control over their own computers, someone will be able to break it.
So here's why I don't worry about disabling right-click: it only really inconveniences the folks who want to do 'fair use' stuff with my photos anyhow. Anybody else is either never going to try to right-click-save in the first place, or is going to be more motivated than the casual fair-use user, and will work around anti-right-click measures as a matter of _routine_. I won't say that disabling right-click lacks any value at all; I can see a naive user running into it and perceiving it as a _reminder_ that folks care about copyright, so it might stop some abuses-through-ignorance (or lack-of-care), even though it will barely even slow down anyone who actually intends to infringe. Personally, crippling right-click isn't high on my list of priorities.
(For the folks who do care a lot about that, accept that you're not going to be able to stop anybody, but you might make a few people slow down enough to think, "Oh, the artist doesn't want me to do that," and maybe consider the reasons for that.)
Similarly, I cannot see a way for Flickr to absolutely enforce license restrictions on photos made accessible via their API, except by making any rights-restricted images completely invisible via the API. Anyone who wants the image badly enough will either break whatever safeguards Flickr imposes or resort to screen-scraping.
What I _do_ see that Flickr should be doing, is making it _as_easy_as_possible_to_comply_ with license terms, and maybe a bit harder for their API users to screw up through 'mere' inattention. (Scare quotes because unlike someone who simply doesn't know better, lack of attention to license terms by someone who does know better but just doesn't care is a bit more sinister.)
Is there a way to tell the API, "Only give me images with licenses that include these privileges"? (It looks like there is on the flickr.photos.search call, as an optional parameter -- is that how most API users retrieve photos?) On retieval calls where there isn't, there should be; if it's already there, perhaps the default can be changed so that an extra step is required to grab images not already CC-licensed?
As always, a balance will need to be struck between security and ease of use. Unfortunately, whether the balance one picxs is 'correct' is not always obvious. Making the default acceptable license list on an API request be some subest of CC licenses instead of "any", and making developers fill in that parameter to get non-CC or CC-noncommercial images would, IMNSHO, go a long way toward that. (If nothing else, it would take away the "I didn't realize I was snarfing up non-free images as well," and "I can't help it, the API gives me everything" excuses! Filling in that argument would make the request for rights-reserved images explicit; no ignorance excuse.)
But ultimately, even after we badger Flickr into making it harder to do the wrong thing accidentally, convincing users that the safeguards are there as reminders and to keep them from doing something they shouldn't want to do, rather than mere annoyances to learn ways around and then ignore, is a social problem more than a technical one. So ... educate, at every reasonable opportunity.
If you want to get a better reaction from Flickr -- if anyone is still there -- what you really should be doing is asking that by *default* the public images only be displayed that have a CC or PD license. As an API developer, I expect that by default things behave well. (that is what defaults are supposed to be -- the "best way").
But still people... realize that Flickr is not in the business of marketing photos. So they have very little incentive to worry about the 'professional' photographer. Their prime market is the point-and-shoot crowd. It's a waste of time to get mad at Flickr for not being what they don't want to be. A better reaction would be to go some place that is more set up to treat photos as a commodity to be sold.
Anyhow with all the turmoil at Yahoo! don't expect a quick reaction.
They are actually hosting images stolen from flickr.
But instead, Flickr makes it a 'choice' for the adopting 3rd party programmer to have to 'know' to 'decide' and code in the logic to check to see if a photo is copywritten before it scoops it up - if they don't do that, it gets everything. If this is the case, then that is just plain illegal since Flickr is NOT honoring their promise that they 'claim' to give us as a service which we paid for when we set up our privacy settings (eg I set mine to NOT make my photos searchable by the API -- I didn't think this choice was actually left up to the website who IMPLEMENTED the API to 'understand' and code and that their API was wide open - I thought that Flickr would not even allow this OPTION to gather photos so-marked on their API at all!)
It is just plain copyright theft by Flickr programmers, to be honest - they should not make photos available via their public API when photographers on their site have CLEARLY marked those as 'off limits'.
I don't want to make my photos private to accomplish this task - what is the point of being on a photo sharing website where one of the best things about it is the ability to get commentary on your photography if you do that? That was not the Flickr promise.
Certainly I want individual people esp Flickr members to see my photos and to comment or to ask me if they would like a copy for their own use. But I certainly don't want them available for mass downloads by pirating websites and I don't want them 'API retrievable' and -- any idiot - even an idiot working for Yahoo - KNOWS this by the way I set my Flickr privacy and copyright settings that THEY designed to 'assure me' that my wishes would be respected 'to the best of their abilities' -- then they go out and design an API that BLATENTLY ignores those precepts which THEY set up on their own website.
They have made this API illegally open ON PURPOSE and I belive this is negligent at best, criminal conspiracy at worst - was Flickr conspiring with 3rd party site developers to further profit from the photographers who pay to use their site via sales of their API keys? Racketeering charges anyone ? Where is a good fly by night out for a buck class action lawsuit attorney when you need one? Where are the Flickr insiders to send some journalist a few juicy internal memos to blow this whole thing wide open?
Good bye flickrHOO!
They are hosting tons of the Flickr photos from the static.flickr.com pages - which means even a well-meaning person who came across them could NEVER figure out who the photographer was, nor ask them permission before downloading and re-using the image on a website anywhere. The number of photos available from Flickr's static pages (search Stashy on 'Flickr') is astounding. DISGUSTING. Does anyone know if legal action is being taken against Stashy yet?
The fact that stashy stores copies of 'all rights reserved' images that were posted to flickr on their servers looks like pretty blatant infringement. Someone does appear to be systematically harvesting images from Explore.
Flickr's response to some reported concerns [e.g. http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/7... is not particularly helpful.
""Thank you for contacting Flickr Customer Care.
I'm sorry, but Flickr is unable to take action when copyright infringement occurs on a site other than Flickr.com. If the photos are hosted on a site other than Flickr.com, you would need to contact the site in question or the site's hosting company to get the photos taken down.""
...when I had pics stolen before.
Interesting, Jim, that in the help forums on Flickr I am being blamed/flamed for feeding you the 'misinformation' about myxer selling photos.
People seem to miss the point that a site, as myxer was/is, who sells advertising space and then has free content onboard is using that free content to attract traffic, to sell advertising.
Hi folks, it's time to say goodbye.
Yesterday (16.07.2008) we understood that there are some images posted on the site without the owners' permission. So we removed them immediately. And then we started thinking how many other copyrighted images might have been posted on the site. Stashy is a community powered site and our small team of two students cannot control and support it 24/7. We created Stashy to bring joy and fun to the people, not to deal with guys that post copyrighted stuff. And since the site started to fail in its mission and we do not have any profit from it, we decided to shut it down.
We apologize to the real owners of the copyrighted images. Please don't hate Stashy, hate their posters.
To all Stashy fans and users: we want to say that we are sorry that we are shutting down our baby. We love you guys!!!
Have fun and enjoy the summer :)
The Stashy Team
A simple knowledge of html is all that is required.. view the html source... search for the term... jpg and one them will be your photo... copy and paste into the browser the prefix before it.. voila..
I stopped posting anything other than small 4 inch wide photos on Flickr for that reason...
Don't kid yourself.. if it is on the net.. it is there for the taking. Play it safe if you value your work
To sit here and say "I want my photos to be public, and don't want to make them private, but it's flickr's fault if they are streamed to other sites" is ludicrious. You should just stop whining about FlickR and pay for a real professional photography service that watermarks your images and charges for downloads.
I'm tired of people complaining copyright infringement just because we carry FlickR xml feeds on our site. I do understand your frustration about high quality images being stolen, which is wrong, but the feeds are free to use as is and by not opting out of the XML/API, you are also forfieting your copyright on the thumbnail images for use in RSS feeds.
Read up on copyright law and take a look at the creative commons license.
Er no. If other sites are reproducing images from flickr, it those sites who are at fault. Just because there is an API and XML feeds does not mean that you can do whatever you want with the content they reference.
"you are also forfieting your copyright"
No, that's not legally [or morally] true, you can decide to give up your copyright, or to license images under whatever terms you wish, but making a thumbnail available does not ipso facto "forfeit" any image rights you have.
"we carry FlickR xml feeds on our site"
And which site would this be???
(I am shocked, shocked to find my photos on the internet!)
Now, as to the issue of carrying feeds on a website or not, here are some facts. Even though a website may display the pictures, and even though that website's visitors might be able to download those pictures, if the photos are never hosted on the website in question, and stay on flickr's servers, there is no copyright violation by anyone but the users of the site...not the site itself.
Now, if the site uses the RSS feeds to download Flickr images to the site's individual servers, of course this would be wrong and a legitimate copyright violation claim.
Should Flickr police copyright issues related to abuses of it's API? It's a good question. But, I believe it is the responsibility of the copyright holder to either police it him or herself, or appoint a representative to do so.
In an ideal virtual world, you could go to a website, type in the file name, and find every place your files have been illegally copied to. But this isn't an ideal world, virtual or not.
You've heard the saying, every cloud has a silver lining? Well, I say, finding a silver lining doesn't mean there's not going to be a storm. Flickr's a great website for what it is. But there are negatives to using it.
If those negatives are bothersome enough to cause you to feel outrage, then why continue using something that causes those feelings within you? It would be illogical to do so. Just ask Spock.
Flickr should be careful.
eBay had a similar attitude about infringing on intellectual property rights. Their position was "Hey, if you tell us there is an item for sale which infringes on your rights, you can tell us and we'll remove it, but we're not responsible for the infringment.
I believe a Federal court just disagreed with them stating that your can't knowing facilitate the infringement or be the middle man.
Seems like the same law firm which was successful against eBay might be interested in chatting with Flickr.
Like I said, I don't condone anything beyond the republishing of API XML, but I get constant "You are using my photo illegally" and after politely advising people to make their photos public, they threaten lawsuits. Read your terms of service before you complain. Your TOS says that your images will be distributed publicly unless you turn it off.
In fact, when people repub xml feeds, they are promoting your photos and your flickr profile free of charge. It's a win-win situation for the photographer and the web publisher.
I just don't see why you complain about that part. Again, don't QQ to me about full size images or people claiming their own copyrights on your work. My complaint is with photographers' gripes on fair and legal use of the API according to the Yahoo and FlickR terms of service.
The topic here wasn't people using the API, but Flickr having the API such that its claims to preserve copyright if that is so indicated in ones' personal settings, was a false claim.
If you restored a classic Mustang, and were to show it off at a neighborhood car show...since you are sharing your work publicly, are you "forfeiting" your legal claim to ownership? No...of course not.
There is no legal precedent to make a claim that because someone publicly displayed a piece of art, that they forfeit any rights they had pertaining to it. Does that sound just to you?
Now, when you use the Flickr Service, the photos you upload are licensed for Flickr to use in their application. Any other use could be considered a copyright violation.
But I don't care...steal my photos. I look forward to the day where copyright is nonexistent.
Art is different from other forms of "work." I believe that the talent of "art" is a gift. You receive free, give free.
What a load of old tosh! You are a) obviously not an artiste, talented or otherwise and b) don't earn your living and put the food on the table for your family from your art.
Non artistic/talented people have taken what is not theirs to take for 100's of years. This is why to this day anywhere in the world you can find very talented musicians, painters, dancers etc who are living in poverty. Why don't you go and tell them that the talent they have been "Given Free" is not theirs to keep! Never mind that have been practising 8 hours a day to perfect the 'free gift'.
You gotta be a Lawyer!
Regards
Mark - Wales UK
I'm not a lawyer, but AM a classically trained pianist, a hit-and-miss amateur photographer.
I make my living as an ART director for 3 quarterly magazines in Texas.
My opinions, however, are just that...my opinions. What did I say? "I believe that the talent of “art†is a gift. You receive free, give free." Notice that phrase, "I believe..." It doesn't mean that's an ideal for everyone...it means that that's what I wish the world could be like. As long as it keeps paying the bills, I'm not going to change things. HOWEVER, if someone steals a photo or graphic of mine for their use, I have no problem with that. Just give a little credit my way and I'm fine with that.
And, yes, Art IS different from other forms of "work." How? Usually, the person performing the art ENJOYS what they do. That's not work...that's living a dream.
Key Quote: "Art, like music, wants to be free."
I agree, being creative is a gift, just like being good with numbers might also be a gift or having the aptitude to be a pilot. Do accountants and airline pilots have this philanthropic attitude to life that you believe is the way artists should conduct themselves? I think not.
My being good at photography is, whilst part gift, part investment too. After leaving the army, I spent three years at art college. Using film and paper was not cheap and I made a considerable investment in materials and equipment to turn my skills into something that could be a career for me. As it happened I ended up in the music business and then had my own design business for some years but now I am finally pursuing a career as a photographer.
I have to make a living. Despite copyright and IP having been conceived during pre-internet times and needing an update, some way needs to exist to make sure that people who create can also make a living from their skills.
The whole concept of creation and ownership may have changed with the increase in digital technology and the arrival of the internet. But the money-free, barter and share economy is fraught with difficulties, although I do use it where I can; designing and hosting a website for free for my Japanese teacher, for example.
I think you may have reading too much Tom Hawk, with his 'my photos are like birds.. I let them go to be freely enjoyed' bullshit. The man owns Zoomr so he has his own photographic business empire and taking photos for him seems only to be a numbers game: his mission seeming to be more one of trying to hit the 1,000,000 published photos mark than anything else. He has some interesting things to say but his opinions on ownership of photos and about giving them all away for free are only practical when you have money coming in from somewhere else, as also seems to be the situation with yourself: proper job, hobby of photography.
Photography is not my hobby. It's my work. Just cos I happen to have a job that other people are envious of [being something I can enjoy as well] do you honestly believe that just because I have this gift, I should give it away?
Utter rubbish in my opinion. Everyone has gifts.
If your 'art is free' model is to be pursued, then everyone needs to join in. If my gift of being creative is something people should freely enjoy, then maybe the gift of being able to bake bread is something my local baker should share with me for free; the gift of being able to cook a superb meal is something my local restaurant should give me back for free... and so on, and so on.
Thanks Alfie, I couldn't agree more.
Moreover Sean, your point about enjoying your work and working at the thing you love etc. I started playing drums with a passion at age 11-pre Elvis and R & R. I practised 3-5 hours a day, by age 14 I was working semi-pro, and 18 I was pro. I continued in this career until I was well into my 30's and married with children. Let me tell you truthfully and honestly, that dream job ain't such a dream when you are leaving your family to travel 1000,s of miles away and to be living there for three months, only to arrive back home for three days before flying off to another continent! This is the life, if you are a successful professional musician, the more time you spend with your family, the less money you are earning to support them. If you believe that earning a living from doing something you love is a dream, then you are more naive that I thought. What do you think Vincent Van Gogh would have said way back when, if you had said to him " hey Vinnie you are one lucky sob man, wow painting for a living, that must be wonderful...hope the ear gets better soon!"
I don't care one way or another about your 'beliefs' just don't go around preaching your gospel according to Hawk BS to the rest of us.
I live in the real world and have done for 67 years. During that time I have had a number of successful careers (if you count earning a good living from your career as successful) which includes being a professional musician, being a marketing manager and clinician for an international company (CBS), running a successful management & training consultancy and, the occasional photographer. I learnt to love every one, because if you are working in a job that you don't love, you will not be giving the best of yourself, to your employer or your customers, and it's my experience that the people who find themselves in those so called 'dead-end' jobs are continually looking for a different job, and it is those people who say that the 'pro' is lucky to be doing something he/she loves!
Gift, schmift! you say you are classically trained pianist, if it was a 'gift' surely you could do it straight away, why did you have to spend all that money on training for?
I don't know about that gift BS, all I know is that all the professional musicians who were so-called 'gifted' that I have worked with both in the UK, Europe and the States, were still practising daily when they well into the 60's and occasionally 70's,so they could maintain their skill level.
In the words of the late Mark McCormick when confronted by a young and hungry entrepreneur who said that he "admired Mark, but he had to agree that he had been lucky". And McCormick's reply was, "Yes you are right, I have been lucky, and you know something, the harder I work, the luckier I get". Or put another way, yes I am gifted and the more I practise my profession, the more gifted I become.
Regards
Mark
And I agree that developers need to respect the all reserved rights. In any case, this looks like grounds for a joint action lawsuit.
Thanks for the post, and I may link to your post in a future article on my blog.
Sincerely
Bob Miller
QUOTE: "You are a) obviously not an artiste, talented or otherwise and b) don’t earn your living and put the food on the table for your family from your art."
Now, what do you think about this hypothetical situation? Say I believe something that you think is faulty, and person "B" tries to show their viewpoint on the matter to me. What would you think of me if I told them to eat sod, and that they have no right to be preaching their BS "gospel"? I'd be a pretty big douchebag, wouldn't I? So, why say this: "I don’t care one way or another about your ‘beliefs’ just don’t go around preaching your gospel according to Hawk BS to the rest of us." That's a pretty closed-minded thing to say. A little respect, please. When was I disrespectful to anyone's opinions? The only thing I offered was a differing point of view.
Sean as far as I can see you are now getting down to conceptual semantics and I really don't want to continue down that road.
My argument is simple and straightforward. You say QUOTE:Art is different from other forms of “work.†I believe that the talent of “art†is a gift. You receive free, give free.
It may well be your 'belief' and what I am putting to you is that your belief is incorrect! I am trying to explain to you that so called 'gifted' people have to work very hard to become recognised as a talented artiste. So, when the results of their work is put on display - wherever - does anyone have the right to say, " hay I like what you have done I am going to take that and use it without any recompense to you because...well it's art init? And art should be free man, and I am now going to bootleg the outcome of your art/talent and make some money. Thank you very much, keep it coming".
Sorry Sean, all that " music wants to free" is just not an argument, and people who are positions of employment such as yourself should not be preaching "art should be free" but standing up for the artistes, whose work you buy for your magazines, and assisting them to achieve a greater audience and wider acceptance.
Regards
Mark
"If you cannot afford a copyright attorney then your work must not be as great as you think that it is and Flickr spreading it around the world might actually be a benefit to you."
....Flickr was basically enbaling violations of my copyright almost every week. That's expensive to chase even if one's work is pulling in big money. Checked how much copyright lawyers earn recently?
More and more every day I lose faith in the common being as I am stolen from or witness such acts.
I for one am moving my stuff to SMUG-Mug.
Something people have to realize is that most people are not educated on what is stealing and what is not, so if your photos end up on some forum because you added them with no added privacy pictures, these are people who probably don't understand copyright infringement, and just like your work.
So if you don't want your photos our there in an easy to steal setting how about putting them somewhere else, or adding some privacy settings.
Also it wouldn't have been hard for the coin site to also pull, a refer link to where the picture actually came from. That is responsible webmastering. Always linking back.
Long time no talk... I was pleased to find this article. Very thorough, thanks for spending the time to write it.
I haven't read all the comments, so this may have been mentioned already, but I find it interesting that flickr won't provide an optional feature to automatically watermark images as you upload them... my impression is that they are well aware of what's going on and want to keep it that way.
Manuel
I am of the opinion that flickr actually doesn't want to do anything about this issue, and as an engineer with 30+ years in technology and computing, I know it'd be a fairly simple matter to make this right if Flickr wanted to do so.
Good luck to all of you. Happy Holidays and a much better 2009.
I agree that it would be very simple to add licensing as a condition for software programmers. Or even just require a rights reserved tag for photos unavailable for commercial use. In the same way the program pulls photos by tags it could eliminate potential photos by tags.
And to think they charge for a pro account and pay you nothing when they sell your content to third parties.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your Flickr experience with all. After reading this post and the comments, I promptly deleted all of my images and my Flickr account. After notifying Flickr why I was terminating my account, of course.
I wish you continued success in the New Year.
Sincerely,
Liisa Roberts
Thank you for taking time to respond.
Liisa~