Creative Commons Question

Posted on | April 20, 2008 | 14 Comments

Question: is it enough to attribute ownership of a creative commons photograph by simply linking back to the original, or should there always be an explicit and named credit for the asset? I have to admit to having done the former on occasions without also doing the latter (I have checked on a couple of occasions that the owners were happy with this form of attribution, and both were).

I recently used a photograph from the Flickr site of Rashunda Tramble without explicit, named, attribution but I did link back to her original on Flickr. Rashunda has taken me to task for doing so, and I have aplogised to her. However, I would like to see how others feel about this issue.

Rashunda, by the way, is a hard-working and experienced journalist working out of Switzerland – given her background, I can understand her issue with explicit attribution.

From here on in, I will take the safe (and courteous) route by giving clear attribution at all times.

Technorati Tags: creative commons, rashunda tramble, attribution, copyright

Category: copyright

Comments

14 Responses to “Creative Commons Question”

Judy O'Connell
April 20th, 2008 @ 4:07 pm

I think you have hit on an ‘emergent’ issue in our Web 2.0 world. I usually make sure I search for images on Flickr via FlickrCC to capture images that are available for sharing. I usually simply point to the image for attribution, and gave up putting the name down (as the name is not always so obvious – rather a user ID). I’ve also been taking to task once – but on that occasion it was a designer who simply didn’t realise they had the wrong attribution attached to their image. Again they were happy to have images used for education, so long as their was attribution.
However, I do think the field is going to become more and more complex. Explicit attribution seems a fair solution to me. I think I will try return to that approach again.
john
April 20th, 2008 @ 5:24 pm

Ho John,
I’f you use the blog this link on cc flickr photos you get the photo and a link, I guess that is the approved way. Pity Flickr would not generate that for one to copy rather than have you edit the blog post in a field on flickr.
A while back I made a collection of photos for my class to use, as they cannot see flickr in school:
http://johnjohnston.homedns.org/faeflickr/munroes/
Has a field to copy the html attribution. Someone should be able to provide a flickr cc search that gives you a html fragment that includes attribution.
Nick Hood
April 20th, 2008 @ 11:57 pm

I publish my sites under the Scottish version of the CC attribution, non-share alike, terms of use:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/scotland/
which gives me some protection. It doesn’t prevent blatant copying, passing off, or leeching (mainly by Chinese, Russians or residents of those other countries without moral or legal values). All we can do is provide suitable credit where it’s due, specifically under CC licences.
Martin
April 21st, 2008 @ 8:38 am

Like Judy I find using the Flickr id isn’t that helpful – as you get things like ‘monkeyboy123′. My tendency is to provide a text link back to the photo, and even though it isn’t great, the user id. I think this at least makes it clear that it’s a link, whereas just the photo being live may not. But I agree it’s tricky – it would be nice if Flickr gave some standard text to cut and paste. There is the ‘blog this’ link but that doesn’t really work when you are creating a long post over in your own blog, since you enter the text on the Flickr site.
Sue Waters
April 21st, 2008 @ 10:20 am

Yes we do need to give attribution and normally I say “Image by then person name” and link the person’s name to the photo page. However, and hopefully Judy will clarify, we should be also including the creative commons license in the attribution. Trouble, is as everyone points out, it would be really good if Flickr or another website created the code easy for us to use. I’ve known of some users on Flickr that also like you to let them know you have used their photo; which is probably polite but creates a lot of extra work if you use photos a lot.

On a side thought – I feel conflicted with how Rashunda dealt with the issue. She could have given you the benefit of the doubt and written a comment on your post pointing out the issue. However on the positive side it did bring to attention the fact that attribution is really important and gave everyone the opportunity to discuss it.
Tess Watson
April 21st, 2008 @ 1:02 pm

Thanks for this post John. I have passed it on to the team here in East Lothian.
We have had a number of discussions about IPR and these kind of issues.

Tess
Lynne
April 21st, 2008 @ 2:26 pm

Yes thanks John I think this debate may go on and on. I understood (obviously wrongly) that creative commons pictures were ok with a link back. It would be good to see more free pictures available to schools for educational use. Did you see this article recently?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7283926.stm
John Connell
April 21st, 2008 @ 2:40 pm

Thanks for the link, Lynne. Flickr and other sites that enable CC are a good source of images, so long as they are used carefully, I guess – hence this post. Before I left LT Scotland, they were also starting to build a repository of free images – maybe worth checking how that is going.
John
john
April 21st, 2008 @ 8:28 pm

A rather crude test:
http://johnjohnston.name/flickrCC/
lets you search cc flickr photos and get an html fragment for your blog including link, author and licence.
no pagination, multiple tags or anything else, but something like this but more professional would be useful for pupil/student bloggers. Not that I can use flickr at school:(

In another comment I proposed a ‘wee kids’ attribution where pupils could use photos that are cced of glped etc. without going into licence specifics.
John Connell
April 21st, 2008 @ 8:34 pm

I tried it, John – and only needed a little bit of formatting to make it presentable. Now can you sell out to Flickr?
Sue Waters
April 22nd, 2008 @ 12:32 am

Hi John Johnson
Your search for Flickr photos that provides everything is absolutely excellent. I spent all day yesterday trying to find a search that does exactly this. The only change I would like would be for the images to be aligned right but that is easy for me to do compared to the time spent providing the attribution.
Jethro
April 24th, 2008 @ 12:27 am

Just use the username that is attached to the Flickr account. Let’s face it, the person is probably more well known for their username than their real name. Besides, it is pretty rude to use something without permission.
David Muir
April 30th, 2008 @ 9:49 am

Hello John

I usually just go with the attribution that Flickr creates when you click the BLOG THIS button. It creates a link back to the Flickr page through the photo and the photo’s title. However, it also adds a line “Originally uploaded by ” with a link back to the photographer’s profile. I think I agree with Rashunda. This line is important in fulfilling the By Attribute bit of a CC licence, as well as just being polite.

I also agree however that Flickr doesn’t make it as easy as it could be to add this information. I tend to BLOG THIS to a “test” blog that is not intended for public viewing and then copy and paste the code into my “proper” blog. Not ideal! I like John’s solution but is it not possible to do this with a Greasemonkey script directly from the Flickr page? Any Greasemonkey scripters want to have a go. (There was a time when I would have tried myself, but I think I’m getting too old and lazy to learn new tricks!)

Finally, I wrote about a similar issue a while back in Flickr: Saying thank-you. I promised I’d leave a comment on Flickr photos I’d used with a thank you and a link back to my blog. I must admit, I’ve let that slip… must try harder!
asiaman
June 4th, 2008 @ 5:52 pm

Aside from the extra work involved, yes must ask for permission ideally or post their user name at the least.