Quick Flickr and Creative Commons rant

I bought a Pro account with Flickr to be able to post photos on my blog and share my pictures with the world. I educated myself on Creative Commons and how to license my photos (which currently are Attribution-Share Alike-Non Commercial). But I’ve been running into this problem a lot – I am looking for a photo to make my post a little prettier AND all I find is “All Rights Reserved” photos. Being as I am a respectful follower of intellectual property law (my Dad would smother me if I wasn’t), I don’t use the photo even with full attribution (that is, including the copyright symbol). But that leaves me with pretty much either using my own photos OR try to scour my friends’ photo-streams to find one. Not an easy task. GRRRR. Anyone can offer advice?

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Related posts:

  1. Guest post: Sharing content online and the Creative Commons License by Steve Anderson
  2. Tip # 10 – Book time for creative activities
  3. Managing your favorite photos on Flickr
  4. Tagging your photos on Flickr
  5. Some challenges of intellectual property law and Creative Commons

April 26th, 2008 in random thoughts

Comments (0)

FlashApril 26th, 2008 at 11:17 am

You may just have to make the jump to a self hosted Wordpress blog. There are excellent plugins that will search for only CC licensed photos.

Derek K. MillerApril 26th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

Don’t forget that you can use Flickr’s advanced search to find ONLY CC-licensed pictures (and videos now too):

http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/

Scroll to the bottom. We use that all the time for Inside Home Recording.

RaulApril 26th, 2008 at 2:53 pm

WOW.I did NOT know you could do that on Flickr. Thanks Derek and Flash for your insights.

keeferApril 27th, 2008 at 1:20 am

Failing that, just do as I do occasionally and simply leave a comment or drop the person an email asking to use their photo on your blog. My success rate is over 90 per cent. Make sure to mention you’re only using a fairly small version and will attribute of course and most will go along with it. Good luck!

RebeccaApril 27th, 2008 at 1:16 pm

Yep advanced search will let you find “usable” photos but if there is also that one pic you REALLY want to use, I simply email the photographer on Flickr and wait for a reply. Usually folks are pretty welcoming (and thankful that you ask) just make sure to link back.

MarinaApril 28th, 2008 at 10:45 am

I had no idea about the advanced search! I had that same problem today and could have saved soooo much time with that search option!

Ah well, am now informed for next time!

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