Creative Commons: it works!

[major_clanger]

Remember this photograph?



I've had an email about it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjbradshaw/2261522652/

Hi, this is Jon Snyder from Wired.com. We are publishing a
photo gallery of bridges in honor of the 71st birthday of
the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. We are going to
run your photo of the Forth Rail Bridge under its Creative
Commons license. The gallery will go live on May 27th. We
just wanted to thank you for sharing the photo. The readers
will love it.

Best,

Jon

Yes. You read that right. Wired.com wants to use one of my pictures.

And whilst I'm still pinching myself to check if I'm actually awake, I get this email:

Hi Simon,

I am writing to let you know that one of your photos with a
Creative Commons license has been short-listed for inclusion
in the second edition of our Schmap England Guide, to be
published late June 2008.

enquiring if this picture could be used to accompany a feature on Shepreth Wildlife Park:



So, CC licences + tagging = 15 minutes (or at least 150 pixels) of fame.

Comments

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Schmap have had one of my Mauna Kea pictures, but Wired is way cool!

[ms-cataclysm.livejournal.com]

squee !

(also miaow ! swipe ! sulk! -translated as

how can Foto be NE gud ? duz not have cat in .

k thx bai

Panda)

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

Well done on Wired - and great shot.

However, and not wishing to blowo ut your candle, you might like to Google on Schmap, who seem to building a business on Creative Commons photographs. They're one of the reasons I made mine all rights reserved.

[andrewducker]

The second pic is under a non-commercial license. So I'd assume that if they're making a profit they'd have to buy it off him normally.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

They don't charge for the guides, but they are ad-funded. Schmap think that this makes them not for profit. I don't.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

They've grabbed one of mine, but you know, actually I've given lots of my photos to commercial or semi-commercial enterprises and I quite like doing it. In this case, they show the photo at 150 pixels with a link back to the flickr page.

drplokta licenses all his (fabulous) photos with a free-even-for-commercial use CC license; he explained why he had a good reason for that but I wasn't paying attention really.

[rhubarbfool.livejournal.com]

As far as I remember they don't use the creative commons license to use the photos just to find them on flickr then ask your permission to use them, so their profit making status is reasonably irrelevant at that point.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

A few points on this.

1) It's hardly as if Wired.com is not for profit - it has front page ads, and is strongly aimed at pulling readers and subscribers to the print magazine.

2) I did google on Schmap, and I got through seven pages of favourable comment before hitting even a vague query about its motives. Hardly the new Microsoft, is it?

3) The message linked me to a form asking me to opt in, and giving a fairly well-constrained licence for the proposed use of the image that, as a law graduate and IP student, I read and was happy with. It's worth noting that Wired.com just told me it was going to use my image; it was quite within the rights of the CC-licence to do so, but I hardly think Schmap can be criticised in comparison for actually asking.

4) The only adverse discussion I have found about Schmap is a thread on Flickr where a pro photographer is moaning about amateurs like me cutting him out of the market. Yes, it's the Pixel-stained Technopeasant Scab argument again.

5) I don't want money for my pictures - at least, not so much as I want recognition and exposure. And I get far more of that by allowing someone else to get a little benefit from them in a way that gets me a big audience. So long as I get the credit, that's fine with me.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

Well, like I said, I didn't want to rain on your parade. But I know some friends of mine have been unhappy with Schmap, so I thought I'd mention it. I'll crawl back under my stone now.

I don't think Wired's business model is the same, though - and as I also said, I like the photographs! I turned down Schmap's approach myself (they requested use of one of my Monterey photographs), but clearly everyone else thinks I was wrong to do so :)

[kake]

As far as I can tell, using amateur photos (and hence flattering the photographers and making them feel good about Schmap) is a big part of their advertising strategy.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Way cool!

Congratulations

[rhubarbfool.livejournal.com]

I've had a couple of Schmap photos but the wired is a real coup.

[hatusu.livejournal.com]

Congratulations1 They are wonderful photos. Maybe you have a book in you. You and Egeria. :-)

[richardthe23rd.livejournal.com]

Woo hoo!

[ninox.livejournal.com]

Excellent news - like to hear that it is working the wa it should

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

To be fair the picture of the bridge is stunningly good.

[maeve-the-red.livejournal.com]

Well done, mate. Nice one.