About licenses, photos and online mobs
Over the past day there’s been a little “crisis” going on over at FriendFeed. Let me introduce the contenders first:
- Kol Tregaskes, who liked a photo on DeviantArt which made it to his FriendFeed account (on June 19th!) via visualize.us
- “velonka”, the photographer of that photo and model in that photo who noticed the image on July 6th
- The picture on DeviantArt, originally marked as Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License
Now, after a few weeks of no action at all, the photographer noticed the photo on FriendFeed and didn’t wait a second to rain down some foul language on Kol:
VerothicA: WHY IS MY PHOTO HERE? are you fucvking retarded? remove it now! Its for Deviantart.com members ONLY you asshole!!!! – velonka
No, not some nice asking to take it down or – what my approach would have been – saying thanks for sharing. Full throttle from a stand still which shortly thereafter got her some flack from other commenters. And rightly so.
Only after various posts the lady apparently notices that her photo was posted as Creative Commons and removes that licensing. Of course, too little too late. Starting a conversation like she did, you are just asking for trouble. I’m wondering whether she is writing the people at Google, Microsoft and Yahoo letters in the same language because the photo is showing up there too.
I personally post most of my photos under a CC license (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike). If there are photos I don’t want floating around the net, which – let’s be honest here – will happen via Google sooner or later anyways, I simply don’t post them online. If someone takes them anyway and makes money off your work, feel free to sue them into oblivion. Been there, done that, although it usually just requires a well written letter to make them pay for their “mistake”. If you’re interested in more of this I can advise you to read some of Thomas Hawk’s articles on this topic.
But what does this whole thing mean in the bigger picture? Did she really think, as Joelle suggested in the thread on FF, that this photo was only visible to people within the DA community? What does DA among other sites do against “stealing” photos? What is the default license on DA? Flickr usually uses “All rights reserved”, which still doesn’t stop people from re-sharing the photos all over the internet. If it’s out on the web, you won’t be able to stop it. If you don’t want that to happen, there’s an easy way out: don’t post it!
What does this mean for sites like FriendFeed and other aggregation sites? If I click “Add to favorites” on Flickr or Zooomr, the photo soon thereafter will show up on FriendFeed and – via the FF widget – on my site, of course linked to the original source. If I share an article from CNET, The Guardian, Spiegel or wherever else, it will show up there too. These links are how the internet works, deal with it!
There’s no way to stop images – or any other media – appearing somewhere else and as long as you’re aware of that it’s all fun and games. If you don’t realize that you’re bound to run into trouble, especially if you’re using rude language to “prove” your point. I guess the whole internet is a mob – not just FriendFeed – or at least, can be.
Of course there’s a slight chance that she planned this all along. She got some results that’s for sure. At least her photo is all over FF now, internet probably later. Too bad the language is also linked to the picture.
Summary: If you don’t get the internet, the internet gets you. :-)
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Tags: friendfeed, licenses, mobs, photography
July 7th, 2009 at 13:53
That nicely sums up the whole fiasco.
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
July 7th, 2009 at 15:57
Article written by Holger: http://friendfeed.com/holgr
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
July 7th, 2009 at 15:58
Hope you don’t mind posting the photo again :)
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
July 7th, 2009 at 16:00
Who’s blog is that? Who contributes to it? Where does it state what author wrote the linked article? Where on that blog does the author tell you who they are?
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
July 7th, 2009 at 16:01
@Kol: did you get permission to use this screenshot? ;) j/k
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
July 7th, 2009 at 16:02
Sean ask Holger. ;-) Holger, you’ll probably get a takedown notice. ;-)
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
July 7th, 2009 at 16:03
Kol: Guess what, I already have a version with a black bar lying around… ;)
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
July 7th, 2009 at 16:04
Ah good. :-)
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
July 7th, 2009 at 16:06
Liked “About licenses, photos and online mobs | holgr.com” http://ff.im/-4UEOa
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
July 7th, 2009 at 16:08
So that’s why that picture has been showing up so much.
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
July 7th, 2009 at 16:14
Great post ab/t the controversy that brewed this weekend over at FriendFeed: http://3.ly/zNW
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
July 7th, 2009 at 16:15
I deleted the one I’d shared.
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
July 7th, 2009 at 18:04
Great picture! It’s my background now and I’ve printed several copies to hand out to friends… :)
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
July 7th, 2009 at 20:50
"What does this mean for sites like FriendFeed and other aggregation sites? If I click “Add to favorites” on Flickr or Zooomr, the photo soon thereafter will show up on FriendFeed and – via the FF widget – on my site, of course linked to the original source. If I share an article from CNET, The Guardian, Spiegel or wherever else, it will show up there too. These links are how the internet works, deal with it!"
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
July 7th, 2009 at 20:53
Liked “About licenses, photos and online mobs” http://ff.im/-4Ulnn
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
July 7th, 2009 at 21:25
Many people I assume don’t even care to read or know about the licensing before they put up stuff online or mash it on social network pages.
In this case of course you have somebody who knows what he’s doing and legally so, and somebody who is a semi-internet illiterate as it seems. Not everyone can be a legal expert, but honestly – we all should be. One day it can bite us too.
I agree with Holger about not uploading photos, if you want to keep ’some rights’ on them – as long as you are not involved in selling your photos online.
I have a friend who’s a professional photographer and the internet has become a nightmare for him.
I’ve read the DeviantArt-Terms of Service when I joined them and was skeptical about their own interests. I like the easy licensing interface of flickr. But having ‘all Rights resevered’ means nothing, unless you have a good, expensive lawyer and somebody who you can milk to pay the lawyer – if you really feel you have to. I don’t.
July 7th, 2009 at 21:28
About licenses, photos and online mobs http://bit.ly/VMzGB blog by @holgr #licensing #cc #social #networks
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
July 12th, 2009 at 08:20
Great point about the ease in which images (and other content) can spread rapidly on the internet. And as you say a person should embrace it rather than fear it. Check out http://www.youtils.com to offer your images for licensing and see where they are used on the internet and enjoy seeign usage metrics around your images on the web (Creative Commons is supported too).
October 23rd, 2009 at 21:38
I know her personally and You people are just sad :)
She was unpleasant and she had her right to be like that.
You can’t be nice to everyone who disrespect You and Your requests over and over again.
Its good to laugh isin it? :)
You don’t care cause on this photo was her face not Yours that everyone ’shared’ without her knowing about it.
She didin’t change the options on Deviantart.com cause she had her ‘rules’ or ‘License’ if You like under the photos she uploaded, and I assume You all can read
It’s hard not to notice them really.
She wrote there ‘You are [!]NOT[!] allowed to use my pictures outside of deviantart.com’ or something like that
And I understand That Mr Kol here had some problem with his eyes that day when he took the photo and upload it somewhere else without asking or telling her that he did that anyway…
s*it happens right?
Now she changed everything on her website
You can use her stock by sending her a note and she decides who will use her photos in their art / manipulations and you can negotiate with her about the the print option or whatever,
she will let You do that if you ask – I think It’s easy enough right?
She is a very nice and creative woman – not a narcistic b**ch like You all assumed.
I have nothing more to say
I hope You all are satisfied :)
You all take care.
Kasia.