Are Flickr Images Abused By Foreign Businesses?

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday February 6, 2011 @04:16AM from the unknown-spokesperson dept.

eldavojohn writes "My friend Drew was notified via Twitter that one of his Flickr images had been selected as poster child for freeloaders who abuse the benefits system in an Elsevier news story in the Netherlands. The original image clearly gives an CC BY-NC 2.0 license to the image which doesn't appear in the story — a story which generates revenue for Elsevier. My friend doesn't speak Dutch so he's a little confused about what, if anything, he can do in this situation. I'm reminded of a family's Christmas photo showing up on a billboard in Prague and I wonder if photo sharing sites are treated as free to abuse regardless of copyright by foreign businesses? Has anyone else heard of this sort of thing happening with images from social photo sharing sites?"

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How can you be a freeloader? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-06 04:19 · Score: 4, Funny

When information wants to be free?
Flickr's recommendation by ILuvRamen · 2011-02-06 06:00 · Score: 4, Funny

Flickr just announced its list of ways to counteract foreign photo stealing for stock photo-like purposes:
1. be really ugly
2. have a cheap, crappy camera
3. just take really bad, crooked, blurry shots
4. Photoshop a cheesy top hat, moustache, and monacle onto all your photos

It looks like a lot of folks on Flickr have already implemented these security measures.

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