Bustikated

This is an almost exact copy (some styling improvements here) of the comment that I left on the original story.

Mr. Glaser:

My name is Byron Bowerman, you might remember me as the photographer of the picture that accompanies this post¹. While I’m honored to see my work published, there are a few concerns that I would like to address.

Flickr’s Community Guidelines² require users to link back to the Flickr photo page for photos that are hosted on Flickr. I realize that this particular guideline isn’t exactly applicable in this particular case, as you have chosen to mirror my image on your own server, but this practice is considered proper etiquette. Although within your rights, by hosting the picture on your server, I am losing out on the traffic that would otherwise be generated by either embedding the image from Flickr, or at least providing a link back to the proper page.

In addition to this informal courtesy, I would like to point out that this picture, as well as all of my public pictures that are hosted on Flickr, is protected by the Creative Commons “attribution, non-commercial, no derivative works” license³. This license grants any non-commercial copying, distribution, transmission, provided that the file is not modified, and the proper attribution exists.

On your page, you have placed the byline for this photo at the end of your post. Combined with the lack of link back to my photostream, I feel that this goes against the spirit of the attribution clause of the CC license. More importantly, you have not provided the terms of the license to your viewers.

Further, the PBS site is clearly a commercial venture. The license that governs use of this photo clearly states that ALL commercial use is prohibited.

The icing on the cake is the fact that all of this confusion could have been avoided by simply following basic common curtsey and contacting me directly. You have obviously taken the time to find my photo, on a site that provides an easy means of communication. You used a link to my website in your post. Clearly you are more than capable of finding a valid email address to contact me directly regarding the use of my intellectual property.

It is only fitting that all of this should take place here, on this post. You have penned a call to action, directed at the leaders of this country to take up this new medium and participate with the people. I can not agree with you more, however if those of us who already embrace the culture and community of the Internet can not be bothered to follow its basic tenants, how can we expect anyone else to?

In closing, I must insist that you immediately cease and desist the illegal and improper use of my intellectual property, either by removing the image, or-more desirably-correcting the issues noted above. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions. I can be reached via e-mail at byron [dot] bowerman [at] gmail [dot] com

¹The picture page, on Flickr

² The Flickr Community Guidelines

³ Creative Commons License