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Creative Commons vs. Copyright
Okay, my librarian-ish friends (and others, if you know anything about these topics), I've been trying to figure something out for a while, and I'm starting to make a decision, and I thought I'd solicit some advice. Not to be cryptic, this relates to the copyright status of the images that I've posted on Flickr.
The cut name is, perhaps, deceptive. Overall, I'm very pro-creative commons. Currently, I've got pretty much all of my photos set up with the Creative Commons License "Attribution, Share and Share Alike."
If you don't know much about Creative Commons, you can read more here.
My license means:
Attribution: If used, my pictures must be credited to me (or, rather, to my flickr account, so either to Claire H., which I give as my name there, or to unforth, or linked back)
Share-and-Share-Alike: Other people can create derivative works based on my photos (of which, so far as I know, two exist - such as this one) as long as they credit me and as long as they ALSO distribute their images under a share-and-share-alike license.
My photos have been used in a bunch of places at this point; without having done any distribution myself, I've got quite a number of shots up on Wikipedia (Jeff Dunham, Ed Greenwood, Neanderthal, to mention a few I know off the top of my head), I've had shots in a few online travel guides, about.com articles, and a decent number of blogs. Over all, this represents a pretty small percentage of my pictures, but it's noticeable, and it makes me happy to see how people use my pictures and find them to be useful.
Basically, all in all, I'm pretty satisfied with this situation. So what's the problem?
Well, many of my photographs were taken at museums and other institutions. Some of these were places where photography was prohibited and I was sneaky and took shots anyway. I've more or less stopped doing this now, for a few reasons - mostly that I now have the money to buy the books of the collections that I like, which obviates the need to take sneaky pictures. So the vast majority were taken in an allowable fashion. Here are some sample photography policies from these institutions:
"Except where noted, photography for personal use is allowed with hand-held cameras and with available light or electronic flash attachments. Tripods and lights may not be used. Reproduction or sale of photographs is not allowed without Museum permission. No flash photography is permitted in the Space Theater or in the IMAX® Theater." (American Museum of Natural History)
"Still photography is permitted for private, noncommercial use only in the Museum's galleries devoted to the permanent collection. Photographs cannot be published, sold, reproduced, transferred, distributed, or otherwise commercially exploited in any manner whatsoever. Photography is not permitted in special exhibitions or areas designated as "No Photography"; works of art on loan from private collections or other institutions may not be photographed. The use of flash is prohibited at all times and in all galleries. Movie and video cameras are prohibited. Tripods are allowed Wednesday through Friday, and only with a permit issued by the Information Desk in the Great Hall." (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
"Non-commercial photography for personal use is allowed, but tripods are restricted in several exhibits, and at the discretion of zoo staff. Commercial photography and filming requests must go through the Communications Department." (Bronx Zoo)
"Photography with flash and video recording is permitted in most galleries for private purposes only, using hand-held equipment. For commercial photography and filming please see business services." (British Museum)
Now, there's definitely a range here - the last two are much less restrictive than the first two, or at least they are much less detailed and explicit. However, here's what it comes down to: by my reading of these, especially the one from the Met, despite my good nature which really WANTS to keep the photographs under the Creative Commons license, I've increasingly become concerned that legally I'm in the wrong. As my photo collection grows and gets more and more hits, I get increasingly nervous, especially when a shot I took gets used in a place like Wikipedia or this article on PopSci.com.
As I see it, I've got a few options.
1. Do nothing. I haven't gotten in any trouble yet, I may not even be doing anything wrong, I could just leave it be.
2. Switch all of my photos to a different license, or take them all out of Creative Commons. I think this is unnecessary.
3. Switch all my photos to a non-commercial license. The problem with this is that it would eliminate a lot of the uses people have been doing - in particular, Wikipedia. And I don't want that - I like people being able to use my shots on Wiki.
4. Go through piece meal and attribute different photos different ways.
I'm currently leaning towards the fourth option, which leads to some follow-up questions - namely, what to attribute things as.
1. The photos I took in places I wasn't supposed to take photographs at all. Though I know why I did this and I haven't changed my mind, increasingly I feel that I've violated ownership rights too much by doing this. I've been leaning towards tracking down these photos and moving them into a "Viewable by only friends and family" category. Since ultimately, I took these photographs more for me than for other people, I think this is probably the way to go with these pictures. That removes one of my biggest infringements.
2. My real question: Can I keep any of the museum and such shots in the Creative Commons? Will some or all of them fall into a Non-Commercial Creative Commons license? If I've taken the pictures and made them Creative Commons BUT HAVEN'T PERSONALLY USED THEM FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES, and then SOMEONE ELSE comes along and uses them commercially, can I be prosecuted? Because if I can't, then I don't see any reason to switch them - I certainly have no intention of using them commercially.
3. There are others, but my brains really not working well right now, so I guess I'll stop.
But I just don't know! At various times in the past (not now) I've tried to sort through this by reading about various rules related to copyright and Creative Commons, but I haven't been able to sort through it. I love my pictures, and I love my Flickr, and I've put hundreds - probably thousands - of hours into organizing and labeling the pictures in my account. If I got in trouble for violating these policies, I could lose ALL of that work - all the organizing, all the labeling, etc. - and I don't think I could bear that. But on the flip side, I don't want to just lock everything down. Certainly, my personal pictures (things I've taken in the park or other public places) can stay under the current license, and that leaves a lot of leeway (for example, of the three pics I showed on Wiki, two of them fall into the category of personal, having not been taken in museums or any such place - granted, both Walmart and Origins Gaming Con could probably get on my case about them, but whatever).
Oddly, even just writing this has helped make up my mind that I should do SOMETHING - but I could use some advice, and in particular some opinions on the question of whether I can leave the museum shots in Creative Commons if I add a Non Commercial license, or can I even just leave them as is since I don't intend to use them commercially?
In other news, I felt better yesterday, but today I feel pretty crappy. What's weirdest is that pretty much all of my symptoms now are different than on Tuesday (which remains the worst day, I felt awful and ended up running a fever of almost 102) and are concentrated on my head, which is completely clogged such that I can't stand without feeling dizzy and weird. Sigh.
Well, I'm gonna go change some licenses (on the shots I shouldn't have taken in the first place because photography was forbidden). I'd really love to hear some informed opinions on some of this other stuff, cause I've been wrestling with it for months without figuring out what to do.
The cut name is, perhaps, deceptive. Overall, I'm very pro-creative commons. Currently, I've got pretty much all of my photos set up with the Creative Commons License "Attribution, Share and Share Alike."
If you don't know much about Creative Commons, you can read more here.
My license means:
Attribution: If used, my pictures must be credited to me (or, rather, to my flickr account, so either to Claire H., which I give as my name there, or to unforth, or linked back)
Share-and-Share-Alike: Other people can create derivative works based on my photos (of which, so far as I know, two exist - such as this one) as long as they credit me and as long as they ALSO distribute their images under a share-and-share-alike license.
My photos have been used in a bunch of places at this point; without having done any distribution myself, I've got quite a number of shots up on Wikipedia (Jeff Dunham, Ed Greenwood, Neanderthal, to mention a few I know off the top of my head), I've had shots in a few online travel guides, about.com articles, and a decent number of blogs. Over all, this represents a pretty small percentage of my pictures, but it's noticeable, and it makes me happy to see how people use my pictures and find them to be useful.
Basically, all in all, I'm pretty satisfied with this situation. So what's the problem?
Well, many of my photographs were taken at museums and other institutions. Some of these were places where photography was prohibited and I was sneaky and took shots anyway. I've more or less stopped doing this now, for a few reasons - mostly that I now have the money to buy the books of the collections that I like, which obviates the need to take sneaky pictures. So the vast majority were taken in an allowable fashion. Here are some sample photography policies from these institutions:
"Except where noted, photography for personal use is allowed with hand-held cameras and with available light or electronic flash attachments. Tripods and lights may not be used. Reproduction or sale of photographs is not allowed without Museum permission. No flash photography is permitted in the Space Theater or in the IMAX® Theater." (American Museum of Natural History)
"Still photography is permitted for private, noncommercial use only in the Museum's galleries devoted to the permanent collection. Photographs cannot be published, sold, reproduced, transferred, distributed, or otherwise commercially exploited in any manner whatsoever. Photography is not permitted in special exhibitions or areas designated as "No Photography"; works of art on loan from private collections or other institutions may not be photographed. The use of flash is prohibited at all times and in all galleries. Movie and video cameras are prohibited. Tripods are allowed Wednesday through Friday, and only with a permit issued by the Information Desk in the Great Hall." (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
"Non-commercial photography for personal use is allowed, but tripods are restricted in several exhibits, and at the discretion of zoo staff. Commercial photography and filming requests must go through the Communications Department." (Bronx Zoo)
"Photography with flash and video recording is permitted in most galleries for private purposes only, using hand-held equipment. For commercial photography and filming please see business services." (British Museum)
Now, there's definitely a range here - the last two are much less restrictive than the first two, or at least they are much less detailed and explicit. However, here's what it comes down to: by my reading of these, especially the one from the Met, despite my good nature which really WANTS to keep the photographs under the Creative Commons license, I've increasingly become concerned that legally I'm in the wrong. As my photo collection grows and gets more and more hits, I get increasingly nervous, especially when a shot I took gets used in a place like Wikipedia or this article on PopSci.com.
As I see it, I've got a few options.
1. Do nothing. I haven't gotten in any trouble yet, I may not even be doing anything wrong, I could just leave it be.
2. Switch all of my photos to a different license, or take them all out of Creative Commons. I think this is unnecessary.
3. Switch all my photos to a non-commercial license. The problem with this is that it would eliminate a lot of the uses people have been doing - in particular, Wikipedia. And I don't want that - I like people being able to use my shots on Wiki.
4. Go through piece meal and attribute different photos different ways.
I'm currently leaning towards the fourth option, which leads to some follow-up questions - namely, what to attribute things as.
1. The photos I took in places I wasn't supposed to take photographs at all. Though I know why I did this and I haven't changed my mind, increasingly I feel that I've violated ownership rights too much by doing this. I've been leaning towards tracking down these photos and moving them into a "Viewable by only friends and family" category. Since ultimately, I took these photographs more for me than for other people, I think this is probably the way to go with these pictures. That removes one of my biggest infringements.
2. My real question: Can I keep any of the museum and such shots in the Creative Commons? Will some or all of them fall into a Non-Commercial Creative Commons license? If I've taken the pictures and made them Creative Commons BUT HAVEN'T PERSONALLY USED THEM FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES, and then SOMEONE ELSE comes along and uses them commercially, can I be prosecuted? Because if I can't, then I don't see any reason to switch them - I certainly have no intention of using them commercially.
3. There are others, but my brains really not working well right now, so I guess I'll stop.
But I just don't know! At various times in the past (not now) I've tried to sort through this by reading about various rules related to copyright and Creative Commons, but I haven't been able to sort through it. I love my pictures, and I love my Flickr, and I've put hundreds - probably thousands - of hours into organizing and labeling the pictures in my account. If I got in trouble for violating these policies, I could lose ALL of that work - all the organizing, all the labeling, etc. - and I don't think I could bear that. But on the flip side, I don't want to just lock everything down. Certainly, my personal pictures (things I've taken in the park or other public places) can stay under the current license, and that leaves a lot of leeway (for example, of the three pics I showed on Wiki, two of them fall into the category of personal, having not been taken in museums or any such place - granted, both Walmart and Origins Gaming Con could probably get on my case about them, but whatever).
Oddly, even just writing this has helped make up my mind that I should do SOMETHING - but I could use some advice, and in particular some opinions on the question of whether I can leave the museum shots in Creative Commons if I add a Non Commercial license, or can I even just leave them as is since I don't intend to use them commercially?
In other news, I felt better yesterday, but today I feel pretty crappy. What's weirdest is that pretty much all of my symptoms now are different than on Tuesday (which remains the worst day, I felt awful and ended up running a fever of almost 102) and are concentrated on my head, which is completely clogged such that I can't stand without feeling dizzy and weird. Sigh.
Well, I'm gonna go change some licenses (on the shots I shouldn't have taken in the first place because photography was forbidden). I'd really love to hear some informed opinions on some of this other stuff, cause I've been wrestling with it for months without figuring out what to do.
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Also, I've friended you! It was nice to meet you again during Bryn's visit (even if I was a poor host due to illness); please do come over again sometime for boardgames and such, and you can meet my lovely roommate in person.
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