Why I am releasing my images under Creative Commons

Published by Jon Milet Baker on 5th May 2011 in Ideas, Opinion, Photography, Projects

creative commons is the way to go. It’s the reason I get 175,000 photo views per day. - Trey Ratcliff

There seems to be more arguments against releasing your images with a creative commons licence than arguments for, and I want to put forward my case for releasing my images under that licence.

So what is Creative Commons?

To give a bit of background (for those who don’t understand it), Creative Commons was founded in 2001 with the mission to develop, support, and steward the legal and technical infrastructure that maximises digital creativity, sharing, and innovation. This basically means they have come up with the legal terms and conditions as well as a set of technical standards and processes to help and protect content authors share and help other locate digital content. There are different licences that allow/disallow things like commercial use and/or derived work.

The following video from Creative Commons is a good summary of what they are trying to achieve.

I have been thinking about this for a while and have decided to bite the bullet and release a large number of my images (excluding portraits) under the Creative Commons, Non-commercial, No derivatives licence that basically means anyone can use any of my pictures on their personal blog for example, or for educational use as long as they credit me and link back to my site..

Why bother? People help themselves for personal use anyway?

True, if someone wants to share something online on their Facebook page or tweet about it they will regardless of copyright status and I can’t imaging any photographer resenting the free PR, however releasing the images under Creative Commons makes a statement that it is completely fine to share my work, and goes one step further and allows others to use my images to support to illustrate their own work. For example I was recently contacted by Newcastle University, asking if my image “Sense of place“, could be used for a research project .

But, you won’t be able to sell prints, if people can download your images and print them out themselves.

This could be a concern. True, I don’t currently sell my prints. In fact, I would be honored that someone would like to buy them (obviously this isn’t my argument) however having read Seth Godin’s Unleashing the Idea Virus (a free eBook btw, and well worth a read from one of the internet’s most admired marketeers) this book goes to show how Seth has achieved more success and recognition from his free eBooks than though his titles published and sold the traditional way, and this equally applies to photographic prints.

Trey Ratcliff is a shining example of this in practice, he offers all his images under the non-commercial Creative Common’s licence but still successfully sells prints online and when I asked him about Creative Commons, he responded with “creative commons is the way to go. It’s the reason I get 175,000 photo views per day.”

What about Stock image sites, they won’t take Create Commons images on, will they?

My understanding is they will. I do however understand the concerns of Stock photographers who rely on selling their images to agencies etc. If they are to use a Non Commercial Creative Common’s licence however, they are not prevented from licensing their work for commercial use. Getty Images certainly takes on CC images, but it seems only under their Royalty Free and not Right’s Managed categories. For me this is not something I plan on doing but this may be a concern if I was a photographer relying on this as an income stream.

Yeah, but no gallery will want to ever represent you?

I recently asked this question on Quora, unfortunately no gallery owners responded. The general consensus was that releasing images under Creative Commons would devalue the work. I am no gallery owner, however I am a business owner and personally I can’t see the issue, if my work is being shared, then people like it. If an image / artist is popular, they are going to sell.

The images on my website are not particularly high resolution, so if anyone wanted a poster print of any of my images, there are going to get a better quality print from me, save the hassle of downloading and printing and feel satisfied they have helped support me as an artist. The Creative Commons licence does not prevent me selling them a print. In addition the value in photographic prints is with artist verified, signed, limited edition prints.

I obviously welcome your views on the subject, feel free to post a comment below and please feel free to use my images, I just ask you credit me and link back to this site..

View my Creative Commons set on Flickr