What I Learned on my Way to the Commons
[by Richard Kelly]
It is my perspective that the role of copyright is to promote publication. Copyright is the engine that allows professionals to grant permission and collect money for the use of their work, that permission is a license. I see no reason for this to change. The fundamental change is how our images are published and what publishing really means in a world wide searchable channel like the Internet.
As commercial photographers our client relationships are primarily creating photographs on assignment or licensing existing images as stock to satisfy a need to sell an idea or to tell a story. Many of us routinely work for the same handful of clients for years. In this regard much of our business practice will not change. But with a new world of image buyers at their browsers, how do we engage them?
As professional photographers in the 21st century we need these things, universal image search with a licensing component, simple and easy to understand industry usage licenses with representative icons and a searchable images and license registry.
These are all possible now.
One model that is worth looking at very closely is Creative Commons. Built on top of Copyright law, this non-profit has built a series of iconic easy to read licenses that explain to the user what permissions they have when using a particular photograph. The image may be embedded with the license and with attribution which is a primary part of all the CC licenses. The simple language icon is built on top of a legal license that a lawyer could only love but one that is translatable in most languages around the globe. I wonder how many of my licenses are universally readable? Many photographers mistakenly assume that Creative Commons is just free pictures, which is just part of the story but not the only story, I suggest reading this.
If the standard copyright is ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, think of Creative Commons as SOME RIGHTS RESERVED.
For most professionals the CC licenses may not be part of your business plan, but some photographers have built their businesses around a hybrid model. This is something each photographer has to establish on their own, but what is interesting is the CC+ option, this model built around the Creative Commons Non-Commercial licenses, but with a component to license commercial rights. Yes, to make M-O-N-E-Y. Read about it here.
By the way, for you first timers, if users of Creative Commons Licenses fail to follow the license, they are infringing the copyright like any other infringer and all courses of legal remedies are available. Registration Counts and your photographs should be registered with the Copyright Office to protect your investment.
Creative Commons licenses are not for all photographers, but we can learn a number of important lessons,
• Make licensing iconic and simple to understand in all languages.
• Make attribution a basic requirement of all licenses.
• Make it searchable and embeddable.
Richard Kelly is a photographer and educator living in Pittsburgh. As President of ASMP, he is a progressive advocate for copyright and professionalism. Learn more about Richard here.
3 Responses to 'What I Learned on my Way to the Commons'
Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to 'What I Learned on my Way to the Commons'.
Simple question: what is your different billable/valuable product? Musicians give away the MP3 then sell elaborate CD versions and concerts. Authors give away the text then sell the lecture (non-fiction) or the movie rights (fiction, but in rare cases).
What will photographers sell when they give away the value of their work?
My take is that the difference is not the product, but the use. By allowing non-commercial uses with attribution, I can gain exposure in an arena that doesn’t pay for photography now. I’d like my art work seen more and I am considering using CC licenses to facilitate that.
The Point of the post was an example of licensing model efficiencies.
Creative Commons is not necessarily an all in decision for a creator. It may be a particular image or a particular project.
Creative Commons may be a tool for some creators who want to share some of their work, legally and efficiently.
As visual artists become more producer than mere provider, they may choose distribution models where some “free” is part of the plan.
For Social Media marketing, I would prefer a choice of Creative Commons licenses to the Terms of Service License in many of the web 2.0 platforms (read Facebook, Twitter, or TwitPic) as I would have more control.
Like I said Creative Commons may not be part of many commercial photographers business plans. However, there are many lessons that can be learned.