Are Flickr Images Abused By Foreign Businesses?

eldavojohn writes "My friend Drew was notified via Twitter that one of his Flickr images had been selected as poster child for freeloaders who abuse the benefits system in an Elsevier news story in the Netherlands. The original image clearly gives an CC BY-NC 2.0 license to the image which doesn't appear in the story — a story which generates revenue for Elsevier. My friend doesn't speak Dutch so he's a little confused about what, if anything, he can do in this situation. I'm reminded of a family's Christmas photo showing up on a billboard in Prague and I wonder if photo sharing sites are treated as free to abuse regardless of copyright by foreign businesses? Has anyone else heard of this sort of thing happening with images from social photo sharing sites?"

Re:whatwhatwhat

[Anonymous Coward]

"I bet the famous Afghan girl never saw any of those millions that the photographer did."

You are mistaking journalistic photography for commercial photography. Steve McCurry took that photo for National Geographic. He probably makes pretty good money working there, but I can assure you it's not millions.

CC licenses have been enforced already in .NL

[paulproteus]

Just so you know, five years ago, a Dutch judge ruled that Creative Commons licenses are enforceable. See here: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5823 [creativecommons.org] . This is the Adam Curry case from 2006, for those who follow the history of such things. There was also a later scenario [creativecommons.org] in 2009 that he also won.

Summary from the Wikipedia article [wikimedia.org]:

In late February 2006, Adam sued the Dutch tabloid Weekend for reprinting photos from his Flickr page and publishing details about his daughter. The photos were released under a version of the Creative Commons license that forbids commercial use and requires acknowledgement, but the tabloid printed a few of them without contacting Curry.

The verdict of the lawsuit did not award Curry any damages, but did forbid the tabloid from reprinting the photos in the future, and set a fine of 1,000€ for each subsequent violation by the tabloid. It was one of the first times the license was tested in a court.

In May 2009, Curry posted on his blog information about a different Dutch tabloid publishing another Creative Commons licenced photo from Curry's Flickr account and Curry's attempt to apply Creative Commons license requirements. The publisher settled without a trial on Curry's terms.

Re:your friend still has the copyright

[burne]

The going rate for use of a photo is, according to the Dutch photojournalist union, 700 euro's per use of a single picture in low resolution. Plenty of jurisprudence, so getting that shouldn't be a problem. TS's friend can contact the NVJ (http://www.nvj.nl/rechtshulp/) for assistance. Don't worry, their English is at least as good as most Dutch slashdotter's.

Re:Yes, and "oh well".

[Anonymous Coward]

"there's also no reason you can't downsize the image to something like 800px at a low to medium DPI which makes it practically unusable for print. "

Hmm.... DPI stands for Dots Per Inch and is usable only for printing and CRT's.
PPI in other hand stands for Pixel Per Inch and is usable only for TFT/LCD monitors or even projectors.

What we search here, is the resolution what would be X * Y where X is wide and Y is height. people should not talk about DPI or PPI when talking about saving photo accuracy and print/presentation possibilities, just about the pixel resolution what is the true accuracy and still depending of the compression.

The PPI/DPI needs a physical dimensions what digital photos does not have. Only the pixels counts and so on the pixel resolution is the most important feature (especially when counting on lossless quality) as it rules how the photo can be used. Not about DPI/PPI what are just one variable in calculation to get digital photo in wanted size to physical media (paper, projection, screen...).

If wanted to place photos to online for public sharing services (Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Picasa and so on) then there are three things need to do.

1. Add watermark (digital and overlay watermarking, digital watermark adds code what can later be calculated to proof photo being yours, even if it is cropped or resized/recompressed. Overlay watermarking adds text/logos/other photo over the photo so it hides or makes original almost unusable).

2. Rescale the photo to good enough resolution (like you mentioned, 800px*Y should be enough)

3. Compress the photo so tight that it actually is impossible to print photo out with good quality. Like JPEG compression level 30-40 at smaller resolution photos (1024) and 15-20 at higer resolution photos.

Re:your friend still has the copyright

[kwark]

Maybe he should start by contacting Elsevier/Reed Business: http://www.reedbusiness.nl/contact/voorwaarden/gebruiksvoorwaarden/index.cfm?articles_id=29A897BD-9E7D-451E-BD73-4229943FB264 [reedbusiness.nl]

The bottom of the page roughly translates to:
We respect I.P. If you suspect your rights are being infringed, we request that you send us the following information:
-postal address, telephone number and email address
-description of the infringed work
-description of the place you found said work
-statement why you think said work is being infringed upon
-statement that the above information is correct and you are the rightful owner or are empowered by the owner to act upon his behalf
-sign the above letter and include a copy of an identity card

Send this to:
Reed Business bv
Afdeling Juridische Zaken
Postbus 4
7000 BA Doetinchem
The Netherlands

Just talk to them

[gentlemen_loser]

Knowing people who work there, I can assure you that this is not a case of an evil corporate monster trying to keep "the man" down and profit for nothing. They review licenses and probably used the image from the OP because it was CC and did not or mistakingly read the fine print. I know for fact that they avoid copyrighted material and email original authors and artists for permission to use materials. This is either an honest mistake or an individuals rushed negligence. Either way, simply email them and ask about it. There is no story here.

Re:How can you be a freeloader?

[budgenator]

A blogger that I follow, Michael Yon [michaelyon-online.com] has quite a problem with people stealing his work, even people who should know better such as Michael Moore (yes the movie producer Michael Moore and I've seen the theft of rights with my own eyes) has stolen his work. In one thread a poster recommended a reverse search engine Tineye [tineye.com], to find photographic copyright violators on the web. You just upload an image or the URL of an online image and TinEye searches its web repository for copies or near copies of the image, Now an average Joe can keep tabs on who and for what his or her photograph are being used for, and if desired put a stop to there illegal use.