In short, because I like to. Nothing more simple… ’sharing makes me feel good’. It is selfish, I know, but it is something I can selfishly do that helps others out.
Almost all of my photos can be shared, used, edited, remixed, reused, redistributed for almost any purpose without notifying me at all. Have at it!!!
Now lets get a little more into what I’m actually talking about. First FREE is not really free. What I am doing is offering everyone use of my photos without monetary compensation. So I can say FREE because there will be no monetary exchange.
Lets get even deeper. Anyone can use my photos as long as they attribute the work to me. So…. it isn’t really free; I ask for something back, a link or text credit. Many times I take care of the attribution myself by watermarking my photos, so in lot’s of cases we can still say I give away my photos for free.
Now, one layer deeper. Not only am I asking that if you use my photos you credit me… but you also must share the work you create under a similar license so others can collaborate, share and spread our combined work. So that is another restriction, but a liberating restriction forcing you to share.
Now I come to a very difficult part about offering my work for free to anyone that wants it. I am torn in my decision in this because there are great benefits either way. Do I allow commercial use of my work?… Let’s break it down. First, when someone does offer commercial use of their work one thing they are doing is helping out lots of small businesses. Small businesses typically don’t have big marketing budgets so they can’t afford to pay a photographer to get the exact photograph they need. They usually resort to using stock photos, which are a great way of saving money. Saving money and not spending money are very different.
This brings up a new question, what is commercial use and what isn’t??? Without getting into what has been discussed and debated over and over, I’m going to define it. I get to define it because, after all, it is my work and I can chose how I want it used.
Commercial Use: Anyone or any website that directly or indirectly promotes someone or something for sale or for hire.
Examples of commercial websites: apple.com, craigslist.org, amazon.com
Examples of non commercial websites: NONE I can think of (help me list some…)
You might be thinking “Wait… I have a blog and I don’t sell anything there! That is a non commercial website!!!” I say great!!! But… Let’s think about it for a second before we give it the stamp of approval… Do you have advertising on your website? If so you probably get paid for referrals or clicks (even if it is only $1 a month it is still money) and that makes it a commercial website. Ok, you have no ads on your website… Are you for hire? If so and your website promotes you, then indirectly it can make you money and therefore it is a commercial website. Not for hire and no ads? Great! I’m sure I can find some way of still saying you make money indirectly from your website but I’ll stop here, YAY you have a non commercial website!!!
Here is my point to the commercial/non commercial thing, there are many websites that on the surface look like they are non commercial but I see them as commercial. It is not a bad thing, I love it when people make a living from their website, but just because you don’t make a living from your website does not mean it is non commercial.
So, should I or should I not offer my work for free to commercial users. Well, I have not yet done so. Yes, here and there magazines and websites have contacted me to use my work and I have granted a single purpose use license; but I don’t offer that to everyone. There are some problems with doing so… I don’t have model releases from everyone in all of my photos so technically I cannot do a lot of things with those photos. Fortunately many of my client contracts have a model release in them so I do have full rights to use the images. I can offer those images to commercial users for free.
How do I offer my work to anyone for free?
Currently most of my work is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike license (learn more about creative commons here). I am always tempted to offer my work under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license because it will open up my images to many others that can use it. If you are not sharing your work, I highly encourage you to learn more about Creative Commons and consider sharing. I see so many websites and blogs with something like “Stealing is bad, don’t steal my images” on it and I cringe every time I see it.
I was asked if my clients mind (via Twitter) that I do this. My answer is, I don’t think they know I do this. I don’t hide it, but I usually only actively bring it up if I feel that there is a good chance of people using the photos.
After months of thinking about it, and after reading a blog post touching on the subject and mentioning an incident involving my work, I am going to start to re license some of my past work to be Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike and releasing future work under the same license (YAY commercial users can now have at it!!!). I think this will encourage more sharing and hope it will give others the confidence to do the same.
Now what if some massive corporation with millions of dollars uses my work to make millions of dollars!!! AAAAHHHH I’m screwed out of a bunch of money!!!…….. Well…. no. According to my license their new work must be released under a similar license and attribute the work to me. So although I will not get paid in dollars I get paid in attribution and the community gets paid with a new shareable, useable, editable, re-mixable, reusable, re-distributable work. Everyone wins because of Creative Commons.
I guess that is a better answer to the question “Why do I give my photos away for free?”…
Because everyone wins
Edit: If I have taken your photo in the past and you would like me to be able to re-release your photo under the new license please leave a comment or email me and I’ll get the release to you. I’m currently contacting past clients to get releases but will probably miss some people, so if you know anyone that I have photographed let them know about this.
Hi Lan,
Thanks for directing me to this topic.
I have to admit that you’re the first person that I’ve been in contact with that is licensing under the Creative Commons initiative. I’ve read about Creative Commons a couple of years back, but have never really considered it seriously.
Apart from photography, I also earn a living from software development so I’m somewhat familiar with the Open Source Software initiative and GNU licensing.
So….my though(s) on this topic:
- What is the Creative Commons initiative trying to achieve?
- Does the model/client also receive attribution through the licensing of images.
- What are the Stock Photography industry players saying about Creative Commons?
Thanks again
hey Lan, i don’t know if you have pics of me that you would need a release for, but if you do i will absolutely sign one
btw – you are one of the awesomest people i know!
Great! Thanks! I’ll send one to you.
@Mitch Wong Ho, Creative Commons is catching on by lots of photographers, just not many commercial ones.
You asked “What is the Creative Commons initiative trying to achieve?” and although I cannot speak for them (I’m sure their website has plenty for information on that) I feel that my intent is to promote creative people to collaborate and enabling people to have access to use photos they like.
A specific example of this is our friends at http://www.galacticast.com/ would not have an easy time making their show if it was not for Creative Commons licensed photos. They use lots of photos under a Creative Commons license as backgrounds and such in their show. They also release their show under a CC license so everyone is free to use their show under their license.
You bring up a great point with “Does the model/client also receive attribution through the licensing of images”… This is going to depend on the model release you have signed. I have not encountered someone that was requiring model credit, although depending on the use of the photo… it is pretty common to credit the person in the photo even though there is no rule or law saying to do so.
“What are the Stock Photography industry players saying about Creative Commons?”… Well I hope some of them chime in here, I personally don’t know anyone that does stock photography. I’ll give this some thought and get back to you.
I’ve had some time to consider your post and comments, Lan. I firstly have to say that I’m not against the idea of CC…you’ve posted a great topic for discussion, and I’m curious by peoples opinions
Secondly, I think that the one thing that the Stock Photography camp offer that the CC camp can’t is that they guarantee quality of work (this is not a reference to your work at all…just in general). They have a selection process and maintain a level of quality, which places peace of mind for clients and saves them time.
Just a simple thought for now
What does it mean exactly that you are licensing under the Creative Commons initiative.
I’m confused.
What would this require of me if I have a client that wants to use my images on CC? Just so I’m understanding, you do allow your image use on CC, but you have all of your released files watermarked? Do you release a particular size watermarked file or are they all full sized?
Thanks!
As an occasional freelance photographer, I agree with all your reasons for making your photos available under a Creative Commons license. There’s really only one thing that keeps me doing so with all my images. Simply put, I don’t want to be associated with organizations or causes that I strongly disagree with.
This came to light once when a right-wing Zionist organization asked me for permission to use photography I had taken in the West Bank for a publication. After doing research on the organization, I realized that their use of my photo would draw an association between myself and a political position I strongly disagree with. Had my photo been available under CC, I would have been out of luck, and they could have used my image without notification.
Given that I work in the world of social justice nonprofits and progressive arts organizations, such unwanted associations could spell trouble for me both personally and professionally. So I keep most of my photos under traditional copyright, and try to make it known that I will freely license the work for organizations I believe in. I really wish there was another way, but for now this is the compromise I have chosen to live with.
Hi Rob!
You have a great reason for not releasing your work under CC. I agree with everything you said.
For me, I think I would be upset if something like that happens… but in the spirit of sharing I feel it is a trade off I’m willing to make.
Thanks for participating in this conversation!
Hi!
Where did you get the scalable/vector graphics for the picture at the top? (cc by sa icons basically)
/ Fredrik
Hi Fredrik,
They are directly from Creative Commons! here is the link to find them all:
http://creativecommons.org/about/downloads