How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend
How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend | JMG-Galleries – Jim M. Goldstein Photography: travel, landscape, and nature pictures – stock photos and fine art prints Jim Goldstein has an interesting article out over on his blog this morning entitled, “How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend.” The article references a third party, MyxerTones.com who utilized Flickr’s API to put everyone’s Flickr photos up for sale this weekend, according to Jim.
“…this weekend a Flickr contact (stargazer95050) let me know that my photo Out of the Gloom, which like all my photos has the “All Rights Reserved” license designation, was being sold as cell phone wall paper through MyxerTones.com. It turns out everyones Flickr photos were available for purchase through MyxerTones.com from July 3rd to July 5th, but Myxer disabled their Flickr integration after receiving numerous complaints.”
Goldstein also takes issue with Dave Winer’s FlickrFan application as well:
“I contacted Dave about this, but strangely he would only carry on a conversation through blog comments. He in essence refused my invitation to talk about how his application worked over the phone or via email. His comments created more questions than they answered. In the end it left me scratching my head as to who the responsable party is in such application development. Is Dave immune because he’s leveraging RSS feeds that pulls content in a set format determined by Flickr or is Dave responsible for constructing an application that properly factors in photo licensing information contained with in Flickr’s feeds and/or API?”
Now Jim cares a lot more about protecting image copyrights than I do. Several times in the past he’s expressed strong opinions when photo licenses are not regarded. And I suppose to a degree there is nothing wrong with this. He is a blogger and is entitled to his opinion and free speech. And he is also certainly legally and technically entitled to vigorously defend his copyrights to the extent that the law allows.
Now I’m also entitled to my opinion on the matter and I guess I respectfully disagree with Jim in a lot of ways here. I do not think that it’s Flickr’s job to enforce copyright through their site or through their API. If someone is putting up a photo on the screen on Flickr, personally I see nothing wrong with someone using Winer’s Flickrfan (I actually use Slickr to do the same thing myself on a PC as Winer’s app is Mac only) to scrape the site and pull off copies for personal use at home. I think that this ought to fall under the “fair use” category and I don’t think that Flickr should do things to disable Winer’s API key or app.
One of my favorite ways to consume Flickr images is by pointing my Media Center PC to my Flickr favorites folder (that I downloaded from Flickr using Slickr and the Flickr API) and watching these images roll across my screen while I have music playing in the background, a glass of wine and my kids all around. Without Slickr, or Slickr’s access to the Flickr API, I would not be able to enjoy my Flickr favorites this way. Without Slickr and the Flickr API I would be tethered to a computer to see my Flickr favorites instead of being able to enjoy them and consume the way that I choose, privately, in my own home.
Now, am I “technically” violating copyright by downloading a copy of a photo using the Flickr API to my local hard drive and watching it on the Media Center PC? Probably. And I’m probably also “technically” violating copyright by sharing an mp3 with friends on FriendFeed or Pownce. And I’m probably “technically” violating copyright when I use Hype Machine to listen to a song that some other blogger posted on their blog (that frequently causes me to go out and buy an entire CD by an artist that I like I’d add).
Me personally? I don’t want to live in a world where copyright is that restrictive.
Now in terms of my own photography, I gave up worrying and fretting over unauthorized use a long time ago. To me this falls under the “life’s too short” category of things. There have literally been hundreds of unauthorized use cases with regards to my photos on the web.
To me I look at my photographs like birds. When you take a bird and open up your window and let it go, it’s gone — even if you paid for the bird and legally “own” it. You and everyone else can still appreciate the bird. You can hear it sing. You can watch it in the sky. It can still even technically be “your” bird. But once you release it you lose control over it. It’s gone. Me personally, I think birds in the sky and trees enjoyed by all are better than birds in cages trapped in someone’s home.
This is the way that the internet works. Put your photos online and if you are any good, someone, somewhere, somehow will technically violate your copyright. It *will* happen. And you have two choices with what you can do about it. You can get worked up and get upset and let it eat at you, or you can let it go and move on content that you are making the world a more beautiful place.
I’m not saying by the way, that my way of looking at copyright is any better than Jim’s. I’m just saying this is how I see my world and how I want to live in it.
” I understand that Flickr users own all rights to their images and it is my responsibility to make sure that my application does not use their images in any way that they have not explicitly allowed me.”
To use Slickr, for instance, you have to apply for an API key. You have to agree to the above to get that key. ANYONE using an API key has agreed to the above. As a Flickr user, I have never explicitly permitted any use of my posted photos other than viewing them on a Flickr web page. How difficult is it to understand that other, unpermitted uses, are copyright violations? En masse, that could equate to quite a chunk of change if, for instance, there were a class action civil lawsuit.
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” I understand that Flickr users own all rights to their images and it is my responsibility to make sure that my application does not use their images in any way that they have not explicitly allowed me.”
To use Slickr, for instance, you have to apply for an API key. You have to agree to the above to get that key. ANYONE using an API key has agreed to the above. As a Flickr user, I have never explicitly permitted any use of my posted photos other than viewing them on a Flickr web page. How difficult is it to understand that other, unpermitted uses, are copyright violations? En masse, that could equate to quite a chunk of change if, for instance, there were a class action civil lawsuit.
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Good post. My only issue is with the statement “And you have two choices with what you can do about it. You can get worked up and get upset and let it eat at you, or you can let it go and move on content that you are making the world a more beautiful place.” That is, unfortunately not the reality of copyright. If I don’t defend my copyright, I lose it. That’s why Creative Commons is so helpful. It CLEARLY says what you can and cannot use my work for. So, yes, download it, look at it, put it on your TV, share it with others, I don’t care. Just make sure you A) attribute it to me and B) Don’t use it for commercial purposes without talking to me first.
Intellectual property law is pretty broken right now, but if you don’t specify specifically how something can be used, than it us up to you to zealously defend that work, WHETHER YOU WANT TO OR NOT, otherwise you lose the copyright. So if I don’t say people can use it, and I find out someone DID, I have no choice but to pursue them in order to maintain my legal copyright. It doesn’t matter if the infringing party is a corporation or someone’s eighty year old grandmother.
Dogboi, you don’t lose your copyright by not defending it. If someone uses your work and you don’t do anything about it this does not move your photo into the public domain. You always retain copyright over your work whether your actually enforce it or not.
Yeah, I just found that out. It’s trademarks you lose if you don’t defend them.
I personally HATE intellectual property law (and the dumb suits that end up as a result, like Apple Computer suing New York City over a green apple logo).
That being said, I’ve made money from Intellectual Property, so I’m kind of torn. On one hand, I want protection from those who might steal my work in order to profit from it, but I’m not so necessarily worried about those who are using it for themselves.
Example: I wrote articles that described various settings for role-playing games. If a bunch of players photocopy those articles to distribute to everyone playing in their weekly game so everyone is familiar with the material, I see no issue there. I wrote it to be used by players, otherwise, what’s the point? On the other hand, if a game company copies my material to use with a role playing game of their design, even if they don’t charge for my material, I’d be upset if they didn’t attribute me. And since my old stuff ISN’T creative commons, they’d probably be in hot water if I found about it. I still hold those copyrights, and I will defend them, even if it costs me more to defend it than I would have reasonably made had they paid me. Why? Because if a publisher finds my work has value, so might another publisher, and that second publisher might pay me for it. But if someone else is using it, that becomes problematic.
Thomas…I think your fudging your words a little… “technically” should be legally and there is no “probably” about it, it’s either yes or no.
I don’t have any issue with folks viewing my work via whatever method (ideally one that will let them also see the creator and copyright if they look, but whatever).
Profiting from my work is whole another story and not acceptable at all. Directly profiting such as what was done by selling the pictures that are protected by copyright is simple theft. Selling software that allows them to be viewed when they are already viewable… meh, though it would be nice to be asked and it would be better if the tools would/could respect the copy right of others. Just like somebody selling that viewing tool probable would not appreciate having their product stolen.
Photographers can list their work under creative commons or in different ways if they want to share openly (which is nice and I do that with a lot of my stuff), just like coders can make their apps open source or shareware etc.
Regardless of how we might feel individually about each issue at the end of the day we all need to respect other peoples rights (I don’t consider corporations to be people though, never mind how they have bent the laws and charters to allow them to be).
Do the people complaining about their photos being used by Flickr’s API realize that they agreed to that when they agreed to Flickr’s terms of service?
Don’t like it, don’t use it. Very simple.
And here I had my work stolen by a political campaign the old fashioned way – the click and download way – and of course they hid their domain registration so I couldnt’ contact ‘em:
http://www.gregdewar.com/2007/10/o_hai_leno_attackers_love_my_p.html
Bastards. Well their stupid candidate lost, anyway.
Oddly enough I’ve been contacted several times by a couple of websites asking me if it’s ok to use random photos I’ve taken. they never pay but they always ask. Then again most of my pictures suck, so I suppose that’s the best way to keep people from stealing ‘em.
Still this was a good article as was the other and it makes me re-think my reliance on Flickr for image hosting.
I find your view surprising Tom. It’s NOT OK for someone to infringe the rights of a photographer to take photos, but IT IS OK for someone to use the photographic work of a photographer with out their consent. If the later doesn’t matter why would the former?
I am not asking Flickr to police copyrights I am asking Flickr to abide by their end of our agreement. I have not given them blanket permission to distribute my photography nor have they stated that is what I’ve signed on for. I have been provided Permission & Security options to regulate how my work is shared. By state and federal law I am afforded that option… the option to Opt-In. If I am opting out of a particular type of distribution then I would expect that to be the end result. At the moment Flickr is unable to meet the expectations of those who have opted-out. That is in violation of their ToU and of the law.
When I opt-out of having my photos downloaded, which I have, then I would expect Flickr to have the infrastructure to support that preference. I would not expect you or anyone else to pull down my photos to a local machine through any program.
Downloading other peoples work online who have designated restricted access to such content is theft just as walking into someones house to borrow a photograph hanging on the wall is theft. I lock my house and open it to friends for individual visits or for parties. Guests can return upon invitation only. Just because you’ve been invited once doesn’t give you license to invade my home and take my artwork to enjoy. The same is true in the digital world.
You may not like it. You may think the world should be different. You may think you’re making a difference by downloading the work of others, but you’re actions are a blatant disregard for the law and the wishes of those whose work you enjoy.
My observations with this situation is one that affords Flickr the opportunity to remedy the situation. You can just as easily enjoy my photography through PicLens verus Slickr. The difference between the two methods is quite clear. One accesses content properly and the other does not. PicLens will enable you to abide by the law and view photographs as I have designated in my Security and Permission settings while Slickr ignores my preferences and downloads my photographs.
There are ways to abide by the law to achieve the means you wish. Why you would opt for the illegal option is beyond me. As a service I pay for I would expect Flickr to enforce my preferences so I don’t have to worry about people who steal. In relation to the API it has the ability to be tightened up to restrict a broader scale of infringement or theft. That is the responsibility of Flickr whether they alter their code or reeducate/enforce how their API is used.
Much to your chagrin and those with your outlook placing content online does not equate to giving it away. The Internet works by sharing information and giving people credit for it. If that information is of value to you as with anything else you reimburse the person for their labor and creativity in creating it. As to what the amount of reimbursement is, is dependent on the terms mutually decided upon.
From where I stand your bird analogy is nice, but quite short sighted. I can’t pay for the gas I use to drive to a scenic location to take a photo with links to my web site. Nor can I buy camera gear with adoration of others who illegally download my photographs to watch on their big screen HD TV. Viewing my photographs or the photographs of any other photographer for free, online, with out their consent does nothing to further their efforts as an artist or commercial photographer. If you want to make a difference to how beautiful images are created and shared then you’re better off buying artwork you love to hang on your wall or buying digital screensavers published by the photographer for your TV. Doing so will ultimately enable that photographer to expand their efforts. No artist has been able to do more to further their career than that. Perhaps thinking about the bottom line of the upstart artist you steal from is something that might change your view of “how the Internet works”.
Flickr provides the API key, Flickr creates an environment with millions of photos at one’s disposal. While they may not be directly responsible, they DO share a measure of culpability.
I don’t sell my photos, I’m not a professional photographer. But when I saw one of my photos being used by a couple on CraigsList seeking a ménage à trois, I had to call foul.
Flickr needs to take a serious look at whether providing API keys is a good idea anymore. It was nice in the beginning, in the formative period. But now that Flickr is the biggest photo sharing app on the Web, they need to make some changes. Seriously, who else is just handing out API keys like Flickr does?
glyphhunter@yahoo.com
I find it a bit disconcerting how the point of the matter had gotten lost by all the focus on personal opinion on how to license one’s own work or the technical minutia of implementing an API. Your original post Tom doesn’t even mention the core aspect of Jim’s post, but diverts it to discuss your personal opinion of licensing your work.
The issue as I see it is that Flickr/Yahoo isn’t caring enough about the rights of their users to follow through on their intentions. By putting a control in place that lets a user identify the copyright of a photo and restrict access to those who can view the photo, they need to enforce this across all access means to the photo, not just block web access and leave the API open. From my perspective, Flickr respects their users as far as it helps Flickr, but not as far as it helps the users.
It’s doubly worrisome Tom that you don’t understand this as CEO of Zooomr. If you provide a means for your users to identify a photo as “Copyrighted All Rights Reserved”, then provide the means to enforce that within you system. It’s not that technically difficult or legally risky. If you don’t want to help protect your customers, then put that up front in your corporate message. “Upload your photos here but we don’t care about protecting them or you”.
What happened to the core value of respect for your customers?
BTW, I saw on the Myxer site the photos were not for sale, they were available for free to send to phone. The title is misleading.
I have no issue with people like you Tom or anyone else digesting and enjoying my pictures for their own personal gratification, at home or wherever. I left Flickr this weekend because I DO take issue with companies abusing the API, ignoring all the privacy and permissions I put on my work there and offering them up to people for free download to their phone. Myxer.com’s website is ad-driven, therefore they are deriving ad revenue from the traffic and ‘value’ their site and content has. That they are using my work in this way and without asking me [and they are not the first to do so] to attract more customers is something that bothers me.
Despite having my Flickr set to reject API calls and third-party site searches, Myxer still had it all. So much for the terms I agreed to on Flickr.
That Flickr seems to leave all the policing of their API keyholders to the users of Flickr is also a little rich.
Flickr do have a responsibility where their API is concerned and they need to wake up to that for the sake of their paying customers.
I am a pro. I make money from my work. People using it for free, without asking, affects my livelihood. I am not naiive about the internet or about the fact that copyright was a situation invented long before the internet arrived. A new model is needed, I appreciate that.
But, I am getting increasingly fed up of people telling me, in an almost parrot-like fashion, that if my work is online it is my own stupid fault and I should quit moaning when people steal it. So, am I somehow denied the positive sides of the web because people can’t excercise a little restraint or have some respect for what other people spend a lot of time and money to create? And what they have said that other people cant use without asking first?
I was in the music business for a long time. Now, there is a business that took ages to wake up to the opportunities offered and threats the internet posed. I dont take music from the web for free. Instead I listen to internet radio, as I respect the right musicians have to make a living from what they do and appreciate the parallels with my predicament as a photographer.
We appear, with the internet, to have created an atmosphere of – “well, if i can sit here in my lving room and consume with impunity, heck, I’ll do it.”
Wrong in my eyes.
How is it possible to enjoy the benefits of the internet as a creative person with this climate?
Time to go back to just having real-world exhibitions. At least I can control who leaves the show with my prints.
Then of course lets get back to the corporations, like Yahoo/Flickr: they hand out their code willy-nilly and then fail to police those people who have it so that I am left, despite having paid Yahoo money, chasing around to stop the unscrupulous ones abusing the rights I have embodied in my work. Flickr also appear to strip out the EXIF data from the small versions of pictures which means that no images displayed publicly on their site have any copyright or ownership information in them that may have been put in by the creator. Then they dont even have the courtesy to respond to their customer’s concerns with as much as a post in their own help forum, preferring – as they did with the German censorship issue – to sit in silence and wait til it all blows over.
Lovely way to treat people. Very glad I left.
I find your view surprising Tom. It’s NOT OK for someone to infringe the rights of a photographer to take photos, but IT IS OK for someone to use the photographic work of a photographer with out their consent. If the later doesn’t matter why would the former?
Jim, I’m not saying it’s “OK” per se or someone to download photos from Flickr. As mentioned before, technically it probably violates copyright.
But just because something is illegal doesn’t mean that it’s unethical in my opinion.
Have you ever listened to a song on the internet? Have you ever downloaded an mp3 from Napster or a blog or somewhere else online? Have you ever TiVo’d a major league baseball game without the express written consent of Major League baseball?
All of these items might *technically* be illegal but they fall under what I would consider ethical fair and personal use.
You bring up the point that I should be happy watching my favorites in PicLens. But you miss the point. PicLens still requires you to be tethered to a PC and is a whole different way to consume images than a Media Center PC. With a Media Center PC I can point my computer to a folder of my downloaded favorites (maybe even some of your images? as I’m sure I’ve faved lots of yours) and it runs these images as a full screen slide show while my music playlist plays in the background.
I’m not tethered to any computer. The computer is up in the attic and I’m accessing the media via an XBox 360. PicLens can’t do that.
While in a Disney/Mickey Mouse driven corporate world of copyright overkill I might again *technically* be violating a copyright, I don’t lose any sleep over it. Nor do I lose any sleep when I go on Hype Machine and click on the little play button next to a song that someone somewhere uploaded to the internet and listen to the song in a way that the original copyright owner hasn’t licensed as being “OK.”
That’s just me though. But I’d be surprised if even you yourself don’t violate copyright in small ways all the time that you might not even realize.
Yes, we photographers are agreeing to the Flickr terms of service and API when we sign up and share our photographs. BUT, the specific reason that Flickr allows for you to mark your photos and copyright them individually, means that the API and other services that use the API need to respect our copyright.
And as you stated in your comment about listening to MP3’s, it’s great if you follow up and buy the cd, but have you ever contacted a photographer from Flickr and purchased their photos?
From what I just read on the New York Times Tech Blog, a whole lot of Flickr photos could end up on sale with Getty Images.
To be honest I don’t understand jim’s point of view other than he is being a copyright pedantic.
If you are great photographer and professional then stump up the money to create your own site, pay for the hosting and let the world come to you.
However most people are not that great or that focussed and love the publicity their images get via flickr. For many the very fact that flickr is so ubiquitous makes it attractive.
I make additional income from photography – I certainly don’t put my best stuff on Flickr, but I do post some interesting work.
I put images into sets and groups that I refer to from websites that I am creating to publicise events or locations and if people are ‘borrowing’ those images for their own sites then I know my what I am doing is working.
I fully understand the issue of copyright (having written numerous columns and articles about it) but I still love Flickr, becaouse it gives me my Warhol minutes of fame,
And no my car isn’t free, but 9 times out of 10 I have no problem with my pix being used for someones backdrop on a phone – even if it is supporting someones ad revenues. You wanna make a t-shirt though?, come and ask and I’ll see what we can work out.
Paul (pawtrait94 on Flickr)
Hey Thomas! As you and your readers know, the recent activity of my company, Myxer.com, was one of the catalysts for Jim Goldstein’s masterful article. As he points out in his post, we immediately disabled our Flickr integration when we learned our service was distributing photos beyond the Creative Commons license.
Myk Willis, Myxer’s CEO, recently wrote a post on his personal blog about our Flickr integration, and the creative and philosophical intent powering it. It can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/5bws7f
I encourage you and your audience to read it, if only to learn more about the integration, to understand that Myxer did not sell any of the photos accessed via the Flickr API, and to see what Myxer has learned from this experience. As Myk writes in his post, these are “trying times for a massive number of creative people whose footing has been destabilized in this era of instant, zero-cost distribution of digital content on the internet.”
We’re all finding our footing here, and we appreciate the insight you and other bloggers are bringing to the conversation. If you or your readers need any further information about Myxer or future iterations of our Flickr integration, please feel free to contact me personally.
Best wishes,
–J.C. Hutchins
Social Media Marketing Manager, Myxer.com
jc.hutchins@myxer.com
Thomas,
Not really defending one side of the debate or the other but how does it work that you decide whether someone’s copyright applies and at the same time decide whether someone can enforce a no photo rule (right or wrong) in their hotel lobby? Why do only you get to decide?
Um, Mr. Hawk, did you miss the “for sale” part of the copyright violation? I don’t mind people downloading my photos for private use but the minute some third party starts making a profit from my work, that’s the time your “free bird” analogy goes from “well, maybe” to “how stupid is this blogger?” Sure, I’m going to “free my work” so someone else can make money off of it. Yeah, not in this lifetime. What planet are YOU on?
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Cheers! Sandra. R.