Ask Slashdot: How Do You Ensure Creative Commons Compliance At Your Company?

An anonymous reader writes At the non-profit where I work, there isn't a lot of money for buying stock photos or licensing professional images. So, we've turned to sources of 'free' imagery, notably Creative Commons-licensed photos on Flickr. While we're not a huge organization, we do have 100+ individuals creating content in one way or another. We're now wrestling with compliance of the CC licensing, like including links for By Attribution images, etc. Our legal counsel is also scared of photographers changing their licenses and suing us after the fact. How do you document the images you find were licensed one way in the past, especially when numerous people from across the country are acquiring the images?

Comments

Escrow service?

[toby]

Send a copy of the image and the license agreement to a 3rd party on concluding it.

Re:Escrow service?

[just_another_sean]

OK, no, not sure about the PP but, sure, I don't know what CC is. Can you explain it to me like I'm five?

Because my first thought about the PP is that was probably a decent, cost effective idea.

Re:Escrow service?

[mythosaz]

Can you explain it to me like I'm five?

"Oh my God, where are your parents!"

Re:Escrow service?

[TooMuchToDo]

javascript:void(open('//web.archive.org/save/'+encodeURI(document.location)))

Using the above bookmarklet will archive the entire page in the Internet Archive immediately (timestamped by the Internet Archive). The Internet Archive crawler respects robots.txt, but it doesn't appear the Flickr robots.txt file will prevent you from using this method.

Just hire the photographer.

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't. By the time you add all the manpower, compliance, and lawyering, it's cheaper to just buy it from the photographer/agency with a contract clearly spelled out, or if you're ballsy, try work-for-hire or buy all their images outright. The photographers we worked with, are usually pretty chilled if we forget to renew the licensing. Contracts are there when things get awkward or if you're a big company don't respond to them. Most photogs are small shop independent contractors and they guard relationships very well. It doesn't matter if they shot professionally for National Geographic, they're very professional and accommodating. The Flickr and Craigslist group are flaky in my opinion, and they don't necessarily track tax revenue, much less licensing.

I'd rather just deal with a pro and be done with it. The same way I'd rather hire a licensed plumber with warranty than asking someone for Craigslist for $100. My time is more valuable.

Re:Just hire the photographer.

[ShanghaiBill]

By the time you add all the manpower, compliance, and lawyering, it's cheaper to just buy it from the photographer/agency with a contract clearly spelled out

My company came to the same conclusion. "Creative Commons" is a legal minefield. Commercial stock photo agencies like Shutterstock and 123rf have clear contracts, much better selection, better search engines, and cost effective bulk licenses. If you have legal counsel involved, Creative Commons is already costing you more than commercial licensing. I prefer to pay artists and photographers rather than lawyers.

svn

[ShaunC]

At a former job, we had a similar situation, no budget for graphics so we only used photos from places like morguefile. We handled it through version control. A subversion pre-commit hook was set up that would reject any commit containing an image file unless specific properties were set on the files (subversion allows custom "svnprops" which are essentially user-defined metadata tags). One of the required attributes was the source URL that the file came from.

I guess this may not have helped much if an image was later re-licensed. Perhaps taking a screenshot of the source site, with some visible indication of the license, would help.

Re:Stay away from attribution licenses

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL.
For CC, attribution is clearly specified. With their attribution blog post, Stackexchange people are just wrong. They write: "Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)."
However they are wrong, as not the author, but the cc license specifies attribution, you can read the legal code, section 4. c).

So your last point is not very strong, at least not for CC licenses.

Spend money.

[sunking2]

It's why money exists in the first place. To make life easier for you by exchanging it for things that are more difficult to acquire.

Re:Spend money.

[kamapuaa]

You might as well say "don't be cheap, hire a photographer to take the pictures." Obviously while rights management for CC pictures is a small difficulty, raising the funds to pay for photographs is a large difficulty that has its own headaches and expenses.

Important fact about Flickr CC photos...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's millions of reposted photos there that Joe Pic-Stealer and his friends have marked as CC licensing. So just because it says CC doesn't mean a damn thing.