Original Photo by Pearlbear from Nosi Salon 12/11/06 at SF Nonprofit Technology Center.
Two days ago, The Tech Chronicles Blog published a post about Marc Canter's "Ahem Society" that used one of my flickr photos. While I was initially flattered that one of my photos was published online by the SF Chronicle, they hadn't asked for permission. To add insult to injury, the link was working!
So I complained in flickr, my blog and left a comment on the Tech Chronicles Blog. (I also asked this guy who I met in Second Life for advice) The link got fixed, but no apology! A journalist stopped by flickr and directed me to a writer and editor over at the SF Chronicle. I contacted them via flickr and the photo was removed with an apology!
There is some irony to this story. The original photo was published as "all rights reserved" because that's the flickr default and in 2005, I was pretty clueless about Creative Commons and copyright issues. I've now become convinced of the power of the "by" license and had just turned my default to it. So, as I explained to the editor in an apology accepted email, this was teachable moment for me:
Thank you for the apology ... I appreciate it! I actually wasn't trying
to be mean spirited or troublesome. I was actually flattered that you
thought the photo was worthy of including the article! I didn't expect
payment!
However, it was placed on flickr with "all rights reserved" which in
addition to proper attribution - permission needs to be gotten before
using, especially for a commercial site! (And, if asked, I would have
gladly granted it!)
I put that photo under that license because that was the default
licensing available in flickr. At the time, I was pretty darn clueless
about creative commons licensing and the why it is important. Now, I've
been an ardent supporter of creative commons licensing and have changed
my default licensing from to "BY" and use "BY-NC" when appropriate
because, in the end, I want to set my content free! Isn't this ironic!!
I guess I could have simply changed gone back to my 2005 photo and
changed the license to a "BY" photo, but I'm also trying help educate
other people in the social change/nonprofit field about benefit of cc
licensing and this was teachable moment for me.
Lessons learned is that if you use a photo (1) attribute any BY photo;
(2) use any BY-NC or all rights reserved photo only with permission.
Thank you again
This brings me to the photo at the top of this page as sort of test of my creative commons licensing skills. I used the original in my NpTechTag summary. I was able to use little tool to remix the photo because of the license that Michelle used which lets me remix it as long as attribute it, use the same license (argh, had to change my default), and not for commerical purposes.
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