With effect from today I am happy to announce that all future photographs appearing on “Say It With A Camera” will now be licensed Creative Commons, and in addition, will no longer be watermarked.
Previous watermarked and copyright photographs will remain the same but you may use them as though they were Creative Commons licensed. In essence I would spend more time changing the license details for the hundreds of photographs that appear on “Say It With A Camera” than I would taking new photographs and I know what I’d rather do
What does this mean to you? Nothing actually, unless you want to use one of my photographs. However, should you wish to do so I am in effect giving you a license based on the sample acceptable use policy as defined by the Creative Commons License.
CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE
With Creative Commons you are free:
- To Share: Copy, Distribute, and Transmit the image
- To Remix: Create Derivative works of the image
Under these conditions:
- Attribution: Attribution to Mike Hardisty and Say It With A Camera must be made along with the image.
- Non-Commercial: The image must not be used for commercial purposes under any circumstances.
Examples of Non-Commercial acceptable use;
- Blog Post describing a trip to North Wales or any other location
- Online article discussing the growing popularity of photography
- A website for a school project about the use of light in art
- An individual using an image as a desktop background for the computer monitor
For the full scope of the license and what defines commercial use of my photographs please read the Licensing page.
Say It With A Camera 
Hmmm.. Can I copy your idea?
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Feel free Barbara. For me it was no brainer. I was spending far too much time trying to find out who was abusing my copyright. In the end I was convinced by a great photographer that by going CC I was more likely to drive traffic to my blog and eventually the images I am going to sell
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🙂 Thanks
I can’t stand doing watermarks. I don’t really edit my photographs apart from cropping them occasionally so adding a watermark is a big job for me still. When i learn more about photoshop it will be easier, but sometimes the watermark ruins the image
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I just created a brush in photoshop for my watermark.
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Hmmm. I spent ages yesterday creating a brush watermark in Photoshop. It sounded easy but wasn’t. Doing similar in Lightroom was much easier but less flexible. I have just started adding watermarks – the reason being twofold. Several people have suggested privately I try to offer prints of some of my images – I haven’t decided yet whether to try this. But also because the issue of image theft is so prevalent. I used to think that nobody would bother to steal one of my images but now I am not so sure. On the bright side, I regularly get requests to use images from educational or scientific organisations and I always say yes (free) to non profit organisations. Maybe I should not worry so much. Most people are honest….. aren’t they?
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Hi Andrew .. I have watermarked, copyrighted etc and then done the exact opposite several times now. Last week I was watching a podcast from one of the greats in the HDR world talking about exposure and licensing his photographs. Everything he posts to the web is done as CC and he uses g+, FB, Pinterest, smugmug, 500px, Flickr etc.
His reckoning is that by posting CC he gets more shares of his work which drives more traffic to his website, which in turns leads to more commercial requests for licensing.
I’ve had a few requests recently and I’ve done some commercial/charity licensing in the past few weeks plus I was sick and tired of trying to police who was using my photographs illegally
Mike
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Well, this is interesting. I’m not a great photographer, just average but have had a few requests and I have turned down the last two, I like Andrew, felt images not worth anyone’s trouble but I was wrong. In the beginning I sold one for 50 dollars and did not get paid so have rejected two requests since then. 50 bucks is peanuts but it was the principle of it. My pic went in a nursery trade magazine and i got credit but I doubt anyone bothered to look up my blog site.
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It’s a fine line Yvonne. Whether anyone comes and looks at my blog I doubt it. Will I be able to sell photographs, maybe. Do I want to sell photographs, not particularly…I’m not turning it into a business. I jus thought, I’ve got a lot of beautiful photographs, am I being too restrictive with my licensing? Who knows, but at least this way I don’t have to be chasing someone who posts one of my photographs on their blog.
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Any of those things are reason enough to do the CC thing. Now I am thinking of doing the same. There is not much of a problem of someone stealing from me but I do not like the reblog thing unless two people have agreed on it prior to being rebogged. Somebody reblogged a pretty good article about a pit bull puppy that I fostered.. They never asked nor did they say thank you. That is just too crude and totally insensitive. There is lots and lots of rebogging and that is all that some bloggers to.Just take and post and for some strange reason those people who don’t have any original posts seem to have a huge following.
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Interesting point about reblogging. I have one reblogger who generally posts my weekly challenge. It has resulted in many more followers because of this.
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Then that is a really good point. Wish that had been the case with me.
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Interesting, Mike. I encourage you to read the article at the link below by Dan Heller. Creative Commons is a great model for the digital world, except photography. I know there are photographers, like Thomas Hawk, who feel sharing their images brings them more work, but I have done the same as a rights managed photographer. I see no benefit in being a CC photographer. Here’s the link: http://www.danheller.com/blog/posts/creative-commons-effect-on-photo-licensing.html
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I read the article, frank, very interesting. But I have decided not to sell my photographs unless it is for commercial, so in theory the CC license should take care of it. Only time will tell….
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