thephotographybiz.com

photo credit: cell105

Uh oh,

A very large lid has just been taken off a huge can-o-worms that could have far reaching repercussions for both photographers and blog publishers who don’t realise what they may be letting themselves in for.

What is it?

Photodropper is a brand new free plugin for Wordpress blogs that lets blog publishers insert photos from the popular photo-sharing site Flickr into their blog pages. See example of the CC licence above - I inserted this using the plugin.

The search for the photos is performed from within the Wordpress ‘write post’ screen itself and one click on the resulting thumbnails that the plugin returns inserts all the code necessary to embed the Flicr photo into the blog post.

“Hooray” I hear you cry. What’s wrong with that? Sounds like a great idea.

I agree (apart from people sharing good images for free), but there is a glaring problem here.

The photographer sharing their work under the Creative Commons licence can choose the license type that allows commercial use. This means that a blog set up for commercial gain can install this plugin and use Creative Commons images that are not prohibited from commercial use.

Trouble is, the photographers that set their Creative Commons licences often don’t understand anything about the legalities of image use. i.e. Model and Property Releases and Trademarks etc. Many of the Flickr contributors are hobbyists and happily so.

While these images remain displayed on Flickr, an image sharing site, they are not being used commercially. But, the minute an image gets on a commercial blog then that image becomes subject to the real-world laws of needing clearances for certain uses.

photo credit: wit

Photodropper have this to say:

“If you run a Commercial Blog, be sure to check “Show only photos that can be used commercially” in the Photo Dropper options.”

They obviously forsee unreleased images being used commercially as a problem because they have made this quote bold on their site here:

http://www.photodropper.com/wordpress-plugin/

They also have this to say:

“This is only a tool - you are responsible for adhering to copyright rules for all photos you post.”

and

“Use of this plugin will be at your own risk. No guarantees or warranties are made, direct or implied. The creators cannot and will not be liable or held accountable for damages, direct or consequential. By using or downloading this plugin it implies agreement to these conditions.”

…which is a nice disclaimer!

Real world test of the plugin

I installed the plugin and as per instructions I checked the box in the Options panel so only those photos able to be used commercially were returned in my searches. Or at least only those the photographer said could only be used commercially……..

While writing this post I searched for a number of things. Many searches returned images of people as you’d expect. Many of those people images were shots taken on the street or in public places. Also returned were images of well known trademarks and logos from huge international companies.

photo credit: chelseagirl

Flickr is not a stock library, so there’s no way of knowing whether the person portrayed in the image has a bona-fide model release or not. But let’s say that experience leads me to believe that 99% of these images will not be released for commercial use.

Yet ALL the images returned in the “safe for commercial use” searches were posted and attributed under the Creative Commons license that “allows” commercial use.

That’s very worrying.

What defines a commercial blog anyway?

IMHO (I’m not a lawyer - read my disclaimer!) its any blog which generates revenue. Even if its a very small amount via advertising related products and services (like the ads on this blog). If it sells anything, or offers anything for monetary gain or subscription.

That said, magazines are classed in the stock world as “Editiorial use” and you don’t need releases for editorial (supporting articles) use. Most blog images just illustrate the concept or message behind the post (like the ones I have inserted) so even though I have ads running - the posts are actually editorial comment.

The problem will come on those blogs specifically designed to sell something. A lot of webmasters are using Wordpress nowadays as its easier to get to grips with, and get a site up and running, than learning HTML from scratch. On these sites the choice of image will be crucial. Like I suggested; a site selling ringtomnes and featuring an unreleased image of a recognisable teenager on a phone would be hard pressed to say the image is not endorsing their product.

photo credit: Tracy O

What will be the repercussions of misuse?

If the stuff hits the fan because that innocent photo of a smiling teenager and phone you just used to illustrate an article on your blog selling subscription ringtones has no release, things are likely to go pear-shaped in the following order:

1) The girl’s parents hire a lawyer.
2) The lawyer goes after the publisher of the photo - hey, that’s you, the blog owner.
3) You plead innocence and blame the plugin.
4) The plugin has a disclaimer. You, the blog owner, are responsible for ensuring you understand and adhere to copyright and the need for releases.
5) You blame the photographer that uploaded the image to Flickr.
6) “Hey”, says the photographer “I’m just doin’ this for fun” I ain’t no lawyer. I don’t know what you need - anyway, you used it.

……..and that, my friends is the bottom line. The publisher almost always takes the blame and the financial penalty.

If you use an image in a commercial context featuring a person, or a piece of property that needs a release for commercial use and you don’t have one then you’re a law-suit waiting to happen.

So,

Please, bloggers of the world, tread very carefully out there. This plugin, if used in the right way is a nice way of getting free images from all those lovely people that don’t seem to want to make money off their skills! I’ll address that thorny little topic in a future post.

Hope you liked the “safe”images I picked for this post :)

PP

Tags: Comment, copyright, credit lines, flickr, Photography Business, releases, usage, wordpress plugin

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (0)
• Understanding licensing types: Royalty Free image licences (1)
• Understanding licensing types: Rights Ready Image licences (0)
• Understanding licensing types: Rights Protected or Exclusive image licences (0)
• Understanding licensing types: Rights Managed image licences (0)