Better seen?

[rhythmaning]

Last week, I received an email (via flickr) from a website: they wanted to use one of my pictures. They weren’t going to pay me, but I would get a credit.

Actually, they didn’t say they wanted to use my photograph: they wanted to know if I were willing for them to put my photo forward for inclusion on their website.

I felt a little funny about this. One of the reasons for putting pictures on flickr is so that other people can see them (including a Russian ‘bot that seems to have taken a liking to one of my pictures and is trying to get me to look at a Russian – porn? – website…). If I didn’t want people to see my pictures, I could just leave them on my computer.

So I was quite flattered.

But also I felt a bit annoyed – a commercial website wanted to use my picture and not pay me. That didn’t seem right.

I looked at the site - Schmap - and I rather liked it: it is an online travel guide. I was surprised they had picked the picture they had - this one of the London Coliseum (this link shows it on their site).

I can see myself using their site, too – so I guess it cuts both ways!

I decided to go for it, since anyone using their site could see my pictures free anyway on flickr, and it was simply greater exposure.

But it did get me thinking about copyright and the internet. Schmap asked for my permission (as they should do given my copyright), but they could easily not have, and I wouldn’t know about it. abrinsky has written about a similar, though rather more insidious, situation: one of his photographs, released online using a creative commons licence (allowing free use for appropriate, non-commercial uses), was published without credit by a commercial, online journal. Not a good situation.

Of course it is possible for anyone to grab pictures off the internet – without the photographer knowing.

So I am glad that Schmap asked me, and I am glad I said yes.

Comments

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

They asked me, too, for this image. Which is actually not very good; I like this one more.

I said no.