Today the 'Flickrsphere' is up in arms over a blog post by New York Times writer Sonia Zjawinski which encourages people to use Flickr photos to decorate their house. The post has caused a massive amount of feedback, mostly bashing Sonia, the New York Times, and anyone who opposes the angry mob of online photographers. The claim is, printing an image file which is publicly visible online without asking the photographer's permission or purchasing a license is violating copyright law. Even if the image in question is a low-resolution preview of the actual photo. Even if the image is not being sold, modified, or redistributed and no claim of ownership is being made by the user. Even if the intended audience for the printed image is only the user and the other inhabitants of their home.
Most images posted to Flickr are uploaded with an 'All Rights Reserved' state (a user has the ability to choose a Creative Commons license if they desire). Some Flickr users rely on sales of their photos as income, so that 'All Rights Reserved' option is very important to them. To prevent just anyone from being able to have a perfect copy of the photo, Flickr provides the option to hide larger sized images from the general public. Not to mention the fact that photographers can upload their photos at any reduced resolution they choose. No photographer that has hopes of selling prints makes their full-resolution images public, unless they have no business sense whatsoever...
Still with me? Good, because here is where it gets ugly. Under this 'All Rights Reserved' option, you have the right to view the image at the highest resolution available to you, on the photographer's photostream. You have the right to view it on your Flickr contacts page. Thanks to Flickr's community-friendly API, you have the right to view the available RSS feeds of a individual user's photostream or of all your contacts' photos in a number of photo-viewing applications and readers. (This sounds like a lot of rights for a license that gives you no rights to the image, right?) You have the right to use those RSS feeds to view images on any number of devices; be it desktop, laptop, phone, television, or *gasp* digital photo frame. These devices might be in your hand, on your desk, or hanging on your wall at home. But these devices usually display images only temporarily, which may suggest the user is only 'viewing' the image instead of claiming some kind of ownership. So how long can I display a photographer's photo on my digital photo frame before I need the photographer's permission? How many people need to walk by my desk at work before I've created a public art installation?
And for the grand finale: What difference does it make if the image is digital or printed if both came from the same source file? Printing the image does not magically make it higher quality. Thanks to the Flickr API, it's possible for any user to get up to a 1024px-square image, which can create a passable 4x6" print, unless the photographer has limited the size of their uploads. But somehow printing the image is looked upon as the deadliest sin. If I set the image as my desktop background, and I see it five days a week for eight hours a day, is that more acceptable than printing out the same image and throwing it in a drawer where it will never be seen?
I don't advocate stealing artist's work. I don't believe all art should be free. I do believe that Flickr is primarily a photo sharing website, as outlined in their meta description displayed on every Google search result ("Flickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Show off your favorite photos and videos to the world"). Anyone uploading photos to Flickr thinking they can control where and how those photos are being viewed... is wrong. My advice to you is to reduce the size of the images you upload. Limit the original size image to people you trust (Designate them as 'friends and family' instead of 'contacts' and then change your permissions accordingly.) Or consider a different method of displaying your portfolio.
Because I know the nature of the Internet, I'll end with this: Please go ahead and print my images and put them up on your wall. Hopefully, someday when you're in the market to buy artwork (and I'm eventually selling prints), you'll remember me thanks to the longer time you've already enjoyed with one of my photos. Just to be clear, I'm not giving you permission to use them commercially, modify them, or claim you created them, that's a whole other story. I do believe in copyright laws, I just think the majority of Flickr users voicing their opinion today have a different opinion on what constitutes fair use.
And, in the comments (if anyone even reads this), try not to make too many 'If I saw your car on the street and it was unlocked and I stole the car it would be cool, right?' comparisons - they aren't helping your argument. No, you can't take my car. But you can take a photo of it.
City Eyes, sebastien.barre, veruus, Lampbane, and 31 other people added this photo to their favorites.
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pauliamhot 25 months ago | reply
Thank you for sharing this photo. I liked it. I even used it for my blog with the link going to your Flickr photo stream. In case you have time this is the link pruelpophoto.blogspot.com/2011/05/person-plagiarizing-art...
Dinnages 23 months ago | reply
Come to this post by Flickr suggesting I read this.
Our query was, with them that we use All Rights Reserved, NOT Creative Commons, and not wanting anyone to be able to download the image library files. I am quite happy users add as favorites or them being added to groups. Also happy to share the views anywhere else online, or paper based newsletters, used more as a taster of what our library is about, collated from negatives that we have obtained along with paying for the assignment of all commercial rights to them. Hence watermarks are on all images around the internet, while laser prints sold are all reverse labelled giving lots of details about each view.
The photographers (some no longer with us) made great efforts at cost often during the war with transport photos, why do people consider it is thier right to use them wherever they think, taking off the internet or scanning the hard copy prints.
Have gone after those who have been found selling them, nicely first, most stop, then those that dont listen, we take a bigger step. The investment in both money and time is ours. So if you did not take the view, just ask first, its better than getting caught out after using or selling copies. The UK has a 70 years rule on artists work, be that photos, drawings or paintings.
Scotty McAdam! 19 months ago | reply
So you want people to look at your photos. But you dont want people to look at the printed version of it, Even tho they can still see it every day in your flickr stream.
Oh here view a photo, but not print the same photo that is just wrong omg.
Dinnages 19 months ago | reply
Whats wrong about allowing selected views of my library on Flickr, as another avenue of publicity. I have invested in the negatives and slides so I decide who can make use of them. If I take them all down from Flickr, all the linked favorites and sets should in theory disapear too, as a friend has closed his account for example and all of his have now gone.
I do watermark them and disallow the external API, this stops other sites using them from Flickr, owning these views outright legally, so if anyone really wants a view in hard copy, they are encouraged to buy a print off me. The prices are quite low, nothing like museum prices! Nothing is sold for publishing elsewhere without permission ( to ensure correct name credits). I therefore share the views, just to look, so want one for something, compensate me for my efforts in scanning, the original purchases made and a credit to the person whose effort it was to take it in the first place. Who had film during the war to take views of trams for example, is that fair to just take those views for your wall ?