All the recent discussion about giving away very limited usage to build a fan base has been great, if a bit frustrating in its misunderstandings. The biggest misunderstanding is that what APE and to some extent I have been talking about is extremely limited free usage–not giving away advertising or even editorial rights but more like personal use rights. I’d never advocate giving away really monetizable (at least effectively monetizable) usage, but letting people use your images in very, very limited ways (like on personal blogs) might be a good idea.

I think what we are really seeing here can be put into two general camps: those who believe that the industry should work “this” way–even if it hasn’t really been “this” way for a while, and those who believe that the industry is evolving and how it works now isn’t how it worked then (whenever then may have been) and isn’t how it will work in the future.

The first camp often speak as if what they say always ends in “…dammit” as in “Clients should pay $50K for that usage and be seen and not heard…dammit.”

I used to be one of those. Pissed off, holier-than-thou, and, frankly, bitter that things simply weren’t as they should be.

I got better. Now, thankfully, I’m in the second camp.

Judy Herrmann in one of her SB2 talks mentions how photography used to be glass plates, then film, now digital, and in the future it’ll be some other medium. I think she nails it. You can’t hold onto the past and try to make the now or the future fit into that past-based context. It just doesn’t work.

In the case of giving away very limited electronic use, here’s what I want to know–how is that different from giving away a print? If you give a print to an AB, she could scan it and use it in her next ad–albeit illegally of course. Same for giving her the rights to use one of your electronic images on her personal website or blog. You just have to trust…and verify as much as you can without treating your gift as a Trojan horse.

Now, technology is really getting interesting for photographers. The ability to encode metadata that travels with your electronic image, including the rights granted for that image, means that your gift is clearly limited. Sure, it is possible to strip metadata, but that is illegal (so if they strip it and then use it in violation of copyright, you have a HUGE stick to wield). Soon, I believe, it will be possible to encode the metadata into the actual pixels–that will make it unstrippable (essentially). So giving away extremely limited usage will be easy to do and easier to police (this will also be helpful when/if the Orphan Works laws change).

I was politely debating with a photographer via email about this idea–of giving away very limited use and explained that it has worked for me. In my case, my product is also intellectual property (often)–it is my advice and that is often in the written form, or podcast. That makes it IP–just like an image. And I give away articles (Manuals) and there is no cost to download the Creative Lube podcasts. These “freebies” bring me more business than the money I might have made by monetizing the usage I give away with these items.

Unfortunately, I could not get that photographer to agree that an image for him is the same as a Manual or Podcast for me, but in the legal reality, they are the same. All three are intellectual property, protected by exactly the same laws and potentially stolen and misused in exactly the same ways.

In the past we would have trusted the ABs who got a print as a gift not to scan it and misuse it. I trust those who use my works not to abuse them. Why not choose to trust? And if you want to trust and verify, just keep up with technology…it’ll be easy (or at least not a burden) soon, I bet.