Archive for June 5th, 2009
Creative Commons and Photography
Today I read an article on photoattorney.com titled “Help! I’ve been infringed!” that made me sick to my stomach. That people could feel so attached to their work that they have such a reaction is, to me, unthinkable. The joy I take in photography would simply vanish if I adopted such an attitude. If I ever make money from this practice it won’t be from photographs, but from photography itself. I might charge for services such as an attorney or technician does, but never for licensing the end result. Similarly, when I stopped needing the recording companies to make me tapes and CDs, I stopped paying them. You want me to pay for the sounds themselves, the vibrations of my ear drums? The very term “intellectual property” seems to me an oxymoron.
This is why the Creative Commons license so appeals to me. Soon I plan to go through all the EXIF data on all my photographs and add this license to them. I’ll also go on my flickr account and mark them all as well. Here are some links and a video to see what CC is all about:
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
http://creativecommons.org/image/
I was told not long ago by a photographer whom I respect that people of my generation have grown up thinking that we are entitled to whatever we want. I have to humbly disagree. In my view, copyright and intellectual property are not only legal issues, they are moral ones as well. More articulate thinkers than I have already made this case so I won’t attempt to do so myself. Below is a video that touches on one small part of the whole. Many more speakers, articles, and books on this topic can be found via search.
Too tired to go on. Maybe another, more extensive treatment of copyright law as it relates to photography will come when I make the switch myself to CC.
