A 5-step manual to use Flickr for stock photos in a proper way
11 April 2008Photo service Flickr is an almost endless source for beautiful, grungy, business, artsy or hip pictures. Since their archives contain literally billions of photos, you’ll find pictures about any given subject. So, if you’re running a non-commercial site, why would you mind buying photos at iStockphoto or risk some serious suing by violating copyrights? Just browse to flickr.com and discover the plethora of creative highlights.
Whenever I talk with bloggers about visuals in their publications, I always advice them to use Flickr. Which they all do. Moreover, as big shots like Seth Godin also preach the Flickr evangelic, the use of Flickr pictures is now widespread. Yet not everybody gets it right.
The most common mistakes are 1, using pictures that are not licensed under Creative Commons and 2, not giving the photographer credit for his or hers picture. The latter is worse, since you miss out on three things:
- When you link to the original photo page, you send your visitors on a exciting journey through the astonishing archives of Flickr. They’ll be thankful for that.
- Giving the photographer credits is good for his reputation. More people will find his work, maybe hire him, which enables him to shoot even more great photographs. Because of you, creativity and art will flourish.
- If people use your work you were kind enough to share, you would them to link to you as well. Not only is it appropriate, it’s also a gesture of appreciation.
So I decided to write a short manual to use Flickr (and for that matter, other CC licensed content) in a proper way.
1. Make your own work available under the Creative Common license
Photographers of 23,752,384 Flickr photos want you to share your content under the Creative Commons License as well. You can tell by the ‘ShareALike’ license. Get yours at the license page of CreativeCommons.
2. Use the ‘advanced search’ option on Flickr
Most Flickr users don’t share their pictures under CC license, so you have to use the ‘advanced search‘ option. When you’re on that page, look for this box:
3. Credit the photographer by linking to the photo page
You only have to do this when the license contains ‘BY‘. Yet if you’d like to stimulate creativity on the web, you might as well make a habit of crediting the photographer. The best way to do this is linking to the photo page. Some photographers want you to mention their name as well.
4. Leave a comment on the photo page
This is optional, yet everybody loves to see their work used by someone else. So why won’t you leave a short comment with a link the photo page?
5. Enjoy the good vibrations!
People will appreciate what you’re doing and often drop by for a visit at your page. As Flick user Brewbooks said when I used a picture by him: “That’s excellent”.
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Categorie: blog tips
Tags: creative commons, flickr, howto, photography, stock photos, visuals
A good write-up, although I do have a few comments:
1. “The most common mistakes are 1, using pictures that are not licensed under Creative Commons and 2, not giving the photographer credit for his or hers picture. The latter is worse”
I’d have to disagree on not providing credit being worse than taking pictures which do not have a CC-license. Both are bad, the first to me is worse.
2. Under crediting, you say: “The best way to do this is linking to the photo page. Some photographers want you to mention their name as well.”. Actually, the CC licenses specify that you always (when it’s provided) have to mention their name / pseudonym. See this part of the never-read actual license (not the ‘human-readable’ one):
“You must keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and give the Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing by conveying the name (or pseudonym if applicable) of the Original Author if supplied; the title of the Work if supplied; to the extent reasonably practicable, the Uniform Resource Identifier, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work”
@Joost, thanks that you took the time to specify and correct what I’ve written.
Considering point 1, I’m disappointed that so many amateur photographers don’t want to share their pictures and at the same time I’m glad that a few thousand do. So when that small of group of people that is kind enough to share their work gets ripped of, I tend to regret that more than when people rip off the hoarders.
Amen.
sxc.hu is also a great source for ‘free’ photographs. You’ll need to register though but thats definately worth it.
Good point! Thanks!