Flickr, Creative Commons, and an analogy involving enemas

Sidney Crosby (Creative Commons Retouch from Vanluven), originally uploaded by DarthLen.

Online photo sharing site Flickr (as if there's anyone who doesn't know what it is) allows you to apply a Creative Commons license to any pictures you've uploaded. Obviously I'm more than happy about this as I've been a Creative Commons fan for some time based on my belief that traditional copyright laws are fundamentally flawed, but it does raise an interesting issue.

Flickr lets you choose a default license for any work which you upload, and also lets you change the copyright license for any given image at a later stage. So you upload some pictures from your holiday in Micronesia that get a traditional copyright applied to them by default, which you can then - if you wish - change to a less restrictive CC license at a later stage. This seems awfully convenient - and it is - but the point I'm trying to get at lies in the ability Flickr users have to change which license gets applied by default.

If you're a progressive-minded person and you decide that the majority of pictures you'll upload to your Flickr account will be under, say, a Creative Commons Attribution license, you'll decide it's far more convenient to change your default license to that and save yourself some effort in the long run. Big fucking deal, right? Well, actually yes. See, Creative Commons allows you to relicense your work at any time you want as long as you license it under a less restrictive license. So if you have a picture of your pug Larry under a CC Attribution NonCommercial Share Alike license, you are free to change that later on to an Attribution Share Alike license, which is less restrictive, but not an Attribution No Derivative Works license which is more restrictive and thus incompatible with your original license; at least not without a convoluted mess of legal headaches. In Creative Commons' own words:

"Creative Commons licenses are non-revocable. This means that you cannot stop someone, who has obtained your work under a Creative Commons license, from using the work according to that license."

Obviously this is to prevent you from fucking over (either accidentally or otherwise) parties who have already made use of your CC licensed work under the originally specified terms, by taking away rights you've already agreed to give them.

I have no doubt that Flickr added this option to make the lives of its users a bit easier, but in the process gave all of us the legal equivalent of a broken-glass encrusted enema with a bullet-shaped tip for easy insertion.

So what do I recommend? What I do is to leave my default license to standard copyright. Sure this leads to a bit of extra work whenever you upload images you wish to have under a Creative Commons license (it's hard work having to perform two extra clicks, you know), but at least you won't be violating CC relicensing terms, screwing anyone who wants to use your work, nor getting screwed by them.

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ
http://flickr.com/help/photos/

Copywrong

I'm happy to make all of my original content, unless otherwise noted, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

This license permits you to copy, share and transmit my work free of charge, in any medium, as long as you credit me (Cal Harding (a link to the site would be nice, too (nested parentheses!))).  You're also allowed to adapt or build upon my work (like in mash-ups or whatever) as long as you credit me and distribute the derivative work under the same copyright terms.  If you want to do any of these things for commercial purposes, you'll have to ask permission first (see below).  None of this affects your right to fair dealing or fair use, whatever you want to call it.  Keep in mind that these terms extend to the use of my RSS feed.

All of this ensures that the work remains "free" for anybody to use without breaking the law - unwittingly or otherwise - or being hindered from sharing by the threat of litigation.

Note:  This does not include the right to republish any images from the site, for which I may not be the copyright holder, nor - obviously - the content of any ads, nor external sites to which I link.

Commercial use:  If you want to use any of my content for commercial purposes, or for any reason want to be exempt from these licensing terms, just drop me a mail at cal{at}calharding<dot>net.  Don't be scared, I'm not uptight about this sort of thing and will probably say yes; I don't mind commercial use, but I'd like to keep track of it.

Comments:  User comments remain the property of the poster and I accept no liability for their content, though I do reserve the right to make fun of them.

Twitter:  In case you're wondering, all of my Twitter tweets (I hate having to use this stupid terminology) are public domain, so do what you want with them.

Disclaimer:  This page serves as a simple explanation of your right to use my work (along with a bit of self-righteous proselytizing), but isn't a legal document or anything.  If any wording on this page is in conflict with the terms of the Creative Commons license, the license takes precedence.

Final Thought:  If you don't know about Creative Commons, I encourage you to read up on it and consider making your own creative works available under such a license.  This allows culture to evolve and creativity to flourish unencumbered by ridiculous and outdated copyright laws.