If you're not part of the iCommons mailing list, take a look at the letter that Heather Ford, Executive Director of iCommons, sent to the list yesterday:
Dear friends,
At the 2 August iCommons Board Meeting, the board decided to make some difficult but necessary changes at iCommons. It has become clear over the past months that our vision for iCommons is different from the... more
Simon Dingle · Johannesburg (South Africa) · Jun 17th, 2007 2:17 am · 27 votes · no comments made
Joi Ito at the 'CC for Photgraphers' workshop in Dubrovnik, Croatia, by Kinuno Hirama
Images
Commmoners at the 'CC for Photgraphy' workshop in Dubrovnik
CC BY 3.0
Commmoners at the 'CC for Photgraphy' workshop in Dubrovnik
CC BY 3.0
CC licensed photography is not prolific enough, specifically with image repositories made available for online use such as in Wikipedia articles. The shortage can be easily solved if more photographers make their work available through the commons, accurately tagged. Proper understanding of what attribution allows for is also important.
This was one of the themes discussed at the 'CC for Photographers' interactive workshop held on the second day of the iCommons Summit held in Croatia. The workshop was hosted by Joichi Ito, chairman of the board for Creative Commons, along with The Digital Garage team - but consisted mostly of open discussion between commoners.
Ito draws attention to the fact that attribution does not form an excuse for breaking other laws. Moral use of photography must still be observed, irrespective of copyright specification. Just because a photo is made available for free use, does not allow for its use in violations outside of the copyright framework.
He recommends a simple rule-of-thumb when deciding on what you may morally do with a photograph. "If you feel bad telling other people about what you're doing - don't do it," says Ito.
Personal rights of photography subjects are enforced by countries with the USA on one end of the scale being more free for photographers whereas Japan is rather restrictive, siding more strongly with subjects.
Ito suggests that a good way to stay protected in spreading photography of people is to engage with them. "People usually only sue when they're pissed off. So don't piss them off," he explains. However he admits that this can be tricky for street photographers and others.
To make images available for use in the likes of Wikipedia, obviously the relevant CC license must be applied, but then the photograph should be uploaded to the commons and be tagged appropriately. If an image is in the commons searches will first look in Wikipedia and then the commons. This will allow for easier online propagation and greatly assist content creators looking for CC licensed photography.
Other themes at the workshop included basic tips for photography workflow, case studies of legal action pertaining to photography, geographical differences in legislation and common use, comparisons of available post-processing software and advice for licensing photographs.
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