Editorials
Microstocks: the Latest Fossils
Recently, attracted by an internet link to photos of “Living Fossils,” I clicked into a slideshow in Popular Science’s online magazine. The usual suspects were there- platypus, opossum, tuatara- but the usual credit lines weren’t. None of the small niche specialist agencies were represented, nor were any of the giants. Not even a microstock! Instead, the credits included nine photos gotten through Creative Commons (CC) licensing, and one through GNU General Public Licensing. Of the two remaining, one was in the public domain, and one was from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (presumably acquired free).
Actually, all the photos were probably acquired free. These CC and GNU licensed images were without charge. Although certain usages of CC and GNU images may have restrictions, the “Living Fossils” slideshow fell outside them. No problem: just grab, attribute and use. Traditionally, credit lines aren’t links. The CC and GNU credits were. The “Crocodilia” photo was linked to “Tambako the Jaguar,” which brought you to TtJ’s Flickr page. The Crocodile photo, taken in the Zurich Zoo, is here: http://flickr.com/photos/tambako/908814138/ If you haven’t been to Flickr recently, please go to: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ , where you can search among various categories of the (as of 11:05am 7/14/08) 66,177,937 images available for CC licensing. Some include commercial usage.
Of course only a fraction of this collection is worthy of serious usage- but that’s not the point. The point is that you’ll possibly be replicating the process used by the PopSci photo researcher in acquiring the photos for the slideshow. Ten minutes on Flickr saves even the few dollars and few minutes that could have been expended for a microstock photo. And you get wider rights, too. Look again at the comment stream under Tambako’s Crocodile photo. An invitation to submit this photo to an exclusive group, some “awards,” and lots of love. Many Flickr photos receive helpful suggestions on composition, lighting, etc. Yes, amateur photographers are in it for the joy of getting a good shot, constructive comments from peers, and the warm bath of adulation. And you can use their photos for free. And while you’re on his web page, drag-and-drop the Crocodile photo to your desktop. Now copy the link in your web address bar, ditto with the photographer’s Flickr screenname. You may now have a free photo and a credit line. All within a few seconds. The PopSci staff who adjusted the Fossils photo files to page requirements, and built the links for the credit lines, could easily have spent more time in these activities than had the photo researchers in theirs.
If this PopSci method of acquiring “visual content” becomes a trend amongst other educational publishers, the stock photo industry could be soon facing another dangerous downward spiral. Ironically, the slideshow title “Living Fossils” is a spot-on name for this trend. Now it’s drag-and-drop for the photo, copy-and-paste for the credit. Over-priced Microstocks require laborious and archaic “registration” and “payment” and “download” protocols. For a growing number of photo researchers, even the microstocks are now fossils.
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For info on GNU licensing:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
Info on Creative Commons licensing:
http://creativecommons.org/
Discussion on Flickr about “model waivers” and CC licensing…
http://flickr.com/help/forum/57407/?search=cc
And in case you think that free licensing involves scattershot subjects, please see:
http://www.geograph.org.uk/ “The Geograph British Isles project aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of Great Britain and Ireland, and you can be part of it.”
Comments(1)
post a comment »Albert, July 28, 2008 [#]
One of the bigger Dutch newspapers does the same thing with every photo that is not ‘hot news’. All illustrative images are from free sources - they don’t pay a single penny anymore. During a seminar about picture research for publications I was told that ‘only idiots still pay for their photography as you can get everything for free now’. The signs are clear and they signal that we live in interesting times, as the Chinese proverb goes.