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What To Do About CC License Violations?
An anonymous reader writes "In the past, I've seen my pictures used by big commercial companies despite the Creative Commons license that clearly limits them to non-commercial use. I just let it slide because a friend who's a lawyer says that all I can do is sue. They've ignored emails and comments. Today, I saw two other examples that show this is pretty rampant. These big commercial corporations are some of the most tech savvy publications around, but they just grabbed the image. One, BoingBoing, even reprinted the 'non-commercial' clause, warning others to stay away. But they've got their ads from Cheerios, HP and Mazda running alongside. Does anyone care that we've gone to all this trouble to create new, more flexible licenses? Does it even matter when very smart people just flip the bird to the license? Is the only alternative to sue? I wouldn't mind asking for $150k and settling for $1 for each copy made, but that seems a bit crazy. I hate to type out DMCA notices but their attitude is that only uncool people complain about this and I should be happy about the publicity. Then they can be happy about not sharing their ad revenue with artists or photographers. What can I do?" Update: 08/30 18:39 GMT by T : (Very belated; mea culpa.) Cory Doctorow writes: "The anonymous submitter is not the creator of the photo. The creator of
that photo is Jennifer Trant, a friend and colleague of mine who has no
trouble with my use of her photo. I have just gotten off the phone with
her and confirmed that she did not submit the story and also that she is
happy to have this photo on Boing Boing." The photo has since been added back to BoingBoing.
...check out the list of CC Friendly Lawyers at creativecommons.org. Somebody might be able to offer advice that doesn't involve suing the infringing parties.
mmmm...forbidden donut
File against them in small claims court for the maximum allowed. They will probably not bother to show, so you will win. With a judgement, you have legal permission to do all kinds of creative nastiness to them. Garnishing wages, filing liens against their property, even having a sheriff by your side as you take some of their property to fulfill the judgement.
I am obviously not a lawyer, and the details will vary with jurisdiction.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
On the assumption the objection may be from the photographer--we haven't heard from them directly, as far I as know, though Cory's on vacation and not available--we've removed the CC-licensed image. We support the Creative Commons and will always do our best to honor the creator's interpretation of non-commerciality. We haven't really thought through CC non-com stuff on pages with advertising at BB as a matter of policy--it's on each poster's conscience. But I know that Cory often seeks permission directly from photographers on flickr, and that other editors do likewise. Thanks, any many apologies if we have err.
boingboing has removed it and one of the editors put this note on the original article:
"Update: We've removed the CC-licensed image as it appears the photographer is unhappy with our usage of it here. We support the Creative Commons and will always do our best to honor the creator's interpretation of non-commerciality. - Rob"
Wax on, wax off baby!
and somebody on BoingBoing was monitoring or got alerted to the problem. The photo has been removed with an apology.
"Update: We've removed the CC-licensed image as it appears the photographer is unhappy with our usage of it here. We support the Creative Commons and will always do our best to honor the creator's interpretation of non-commerciality. Please accept our apologies. - Rob"
hey everyone -- it's my picture of "Cory's Hammock" that appeared on boingboing: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/07/27/gone-fission----see.html i release most of my pics and academic writing under CC-BY-NC-SA, which is the license that was reproduced on the post. but when i put these pics up on Flickr after Cory sent the hammock [yes, there is some irony there. it is his hammock!] i gave him permission to use them if he wished. and he has. and it's ok with me. as some of the comments in this thread note, the definition of "non-commercial" is the most problematic thing about CC licenses: see http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Defining_Noncommercial for background from the Creative Commons. however, in this case [and IP infringement decisions are based on specific circumstances] that definition is inconsequential, because my permission was granted. remember, CC licenses are non-exclusive, and the same content released under CC can also be licensed in other places in other ways. whoever started this thread didn't check with me [i'm not that hard to find] or with BoingBoing about the circumstances under which my image was used. my picture was 'Used with permission". i've suggested that the rights statement on BoingBoing be updated to make that clear. thanks for your help, everyone, but this damsel is not in distress! /jt
I'm the Boing Boing editor who posted the image that the OP claims violated the Creative Commons license.
Read the OP closely: he's not saying that it was *his* image I took -- rather, that he was affronted on behalf of the photographer.
Except that the photographer in this case is my friend and colleague Jennifer Trant, and I used the photo with her permission, and then reproduced the entire CC license so that other people would know what terms they could use it on.
So, anonymous poster: how about the next time you decide to smear someone for infringing Creative Commons in the name of defending someone's copyrights, you actually make sure that the creator hasn't authorized the use?