ASMP has a post on its SB2 blog that says, essentially, that Creative Commons licenses may be a good model for photography licensing going forward. I cannot tell you how appalled I am by that. But I can understand that attitude because if there is one thing the CC folks are good at, it is selling their snake oil. They can spin reality to make it seem like one is doing something fantastically morally decent and important when really the CC massive corporate backers are just using and capitalizing on every item given to the “commons” to expand their own businesses.

The clearest analytical error that is being made is blurring the B2C appeal of Creative Commons licensing (and “free”-based business models in general) and the B2B world. CC has been incredibly effective at selling “free” to the masses, because, well, who doesn’t like getting something for free? So, they spin the idea that if you give away something, you will build a following and that will result in more business for you. Well, yes, that may work with consumers (and even then I’m not convinced, see Malcolm Gladwell’s excoriation of C. Anderson’s book Free) but it does not work with businesses as your targets.

Think about it, you do not see any business releasing its fundamental IP-based product via CC or any “free” system. No, Google doesn’t give away its fundamental product when it gives free software licenses, because that IP is not its money-making fundamental product–advertising is. Anything else it gives away is simply marketing. It’s like getting the free t-shirt when you sign up for the credit card.

It just feels bigger and more like they are giving away something important because they are giving away something useful and cool. Also, it’s easy to sell IP-creators on giving away their IP if you (like Goggle) are giving away IP. But we have to remember, the IP Google (etc.) give(s) away is not of significant value to them! It is not their lifeblood, their product. No, what they give away is fluff in their business model. It’s a marketing cost on their balance sheet.

Your IP, your images, are not fluff to your business model. Your IP is your core product, and you cannot give it away.

The correct analogy for photographers who wish to use a “free” model thus is not “give away some photo (licenses) to get more photo work” but rather would be “give away t-shirts (or music or a book or a toaster or internet advertising space, even) to get more photo work.”

Although this article talks about pricing of a physical product, I think the concepts discussed apply very well to creative industries, especially photography. As the author indicates, pricing based on value and raising your prices for higher value items is not only reasonable, it’s arguably the most rational thing you can do in today’s business environment.

Most importantly, note the list of reasons why people don’t implement such a system successfully. How many of those reasons have we all heard, over and over, in our industry? Especially the old saw about customers setting the prices…

As I was saying yesterday over drinks with some photo friends, we are at an incredible cusp in the history of creative-based businesses. The power that used to be in the hands of publishers and other middlemen is up for grabs. That’s why there are bullying clients more–because they are scared as they lose the control they used to have. Now is the time when creatives could grab that power, once and for all, but it means rejecting rights-grabbing contracts and/or giving work away (via CC licenses or otherwise). One way to take this power and to wield it fairly is to use a variable pricing system–usage pricing in our case–as this article suggests.

Ah, the irony in the name of the piece…

Do you have a subscription to DPP or Outdoor Photographer (same publisher)? I encourage you to cancel it or, at least, to write and complain about this piece http://www.digitalphotopro.com/gear/more-gear/misinformation-copyright-tech.html

I friend sent me this email this morning (his tongue in his cheek, of course):

See, not only do you not need ‘fancy’ photography, you don’t even need competent photography for a good corporate website. http://www.grizzly.com/inside_grizzly.aspx

Oh, and it’s okay to have your kids draw your logo, too.

I’m sharing it with you because I think it’s hilarious. Also, I’m sharing it as a lesson because some of you will have a natural tendency to get pissed and complain that this is what you are competing with.

That’s wrong thinking and wasted effort. Businesses like this who shoot for themselves or get the cheapest “camera with a heartbeat” out there are NOT your competition. They are not worth your time, effort, or thought. Forget about them except to laugh about how bad their websites are. Let them go. Don’t chase the bottom.

Instead, find the right targets for your work. Keep a file of ads, editorial, whatever you see that feels like a fit for your vision–and go after those targets. Aspire to work with clients who have the same aesthetic as you do rather than trying to get someone who thinks Thomas Kinkade is high art to appreciate your creativity. You don’t have the time to change them and why bother when they are still not likely to value (financially) your work?

Don’t waste the energy on trying to make the proverbial silk purse from a sow’s ear.

_______

UPDATE

Two things…

1. I got an anonymous comment (and you know I don’t approve anonymous comments) that was actually from an “imaging company” (I checked the IP address). The author asked what I thought was wrong with the images and called them “not stellar” but “competent.” So, I’ll tell what I think is wrong with them: the lighting, the exposure, the contrast, the color temperature, the styling, the framing, the wardrobe… pretty much everything. I’m hard-pressed to find “right” in many of the pictures. If this is competent, I’d hate to see what incompetent is.

Grizzly clearly has enough business to warrant much better! If they are this successful with horrible design and laughable images, imaging how successful they might be with the good stuff!

2. Otto Hyde is an old friend who was pulling my leg.

Sorry for the lack of posts. I’ve been hard at work on the second edition of my Business Basics for the Successful Commercial Photographer (or How to Use your Left Brain Too). Lots of material to update. It’s made me be a bad blogger lately, and I’m sorry for that.

Speaking of the book, I’m adding a whole chapter on social media and I’d like your help. If you have issues, questions, ideas relating to that subject, please let me know. You can post them in the comments here or email me or FB me.

Also, if you have other questions you’d like to have covered in this book, you can always share those as well.

Thanks for your patience!

Ruh-roh…

For photographers who don’t want to get too bogged in the details here’s the short form:

Lessig backs Kagan.

Lessig backs the Pirate Party (Sweden) and shares many of the same stated policy goals.

Kagan was significantly involved in Lessig getting hired by Harvard.

Harvard’s Berkman Center is (essentially) the home of Creative Commons now (btw, note how they call CC a “public charity”!!!

Harvard’s Berkman Center DEFENDED Joel Tenenbaum in his infringement case (where he brazenly stole huge volumes of music).

Can we conclude that Kagan backs many of these same policy goals?

Lessig in the ASMP video (about 19:46 in) and elsewhere, in collaboration with his CC minions, makes a very bold claim that the White House uses CC Attribution licenses for content on the Whitehouse.gov site. He says it quickly and implies that ALL content on that site is under that license.

In fact, there are two lies in that. First, it is not all content. Content created by the US government is in the public domain at creation. The US government cannot hold copyrights for its own creations (it can hold © otherwise though, like those assigned to it, however–see previous link). Lessig doesn’t even mention that because it weakens the impact of what he is saying.

In fact, if the government was going to mandate a change in how it handled copyright on that site, why didn’t it say “all content submitted must be released by its copyright holder into the public domain” or similar? Why have a CC license at all? It serves no purpose that I can fathom.

The second lie is that all third-party content is under a CC-Attribution license on that site now. That too is untrue.

Here is what you will find on CC’s site: [whitehouse.gov] included a clause in its copyright policy mandating that all 3rd party content [link in original, bold added by me] on the site be released under our Attribution [link removed by me] license.

Mandating… that’s an important word. According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, it means “to make mandatory.” But, if you read the content of that Copyright info page linked to by CC above, here is what you will find (all links removed by me):

Except where otherwise noted, third-party content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Visitors to this website agree to grant a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license to the rest of the world for their submissions to Whitehouse.gov under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

“Except where otherwise noted” means that all the third-party content is NOT CC after all. It’s not a mandate, it is a default. And it is playing on the ignorance of the general public because in the next sentence it says that “Visitors…agree…for their submissions.” In other words, if you offer something up, yeah, they want you to give it away. But clearly they are negotiating with other content providers.

That’s not a mandate. That’s screwing the ignorant just like so many sites do (for example, if you submit content to CNN via their iReport system you are essentially giving it away too, but they will pay for and license content from others).

Moreover, it is another case of Lessig playing fast and loose with the truth.

Matt on ASMP’s ProAdvice Forum posted this link to a NYTimes article, worried about the photographer ramifications. PlaceLocal is an online ad creator system that gathers elements and combines them into a cheap ad. Some of the elements it gathers are, apparently, photos.

Sure, it looks bad on its surface, but it is always a good idea to gather more data before jumping to conclusions. So, I contacted the company and asked them about their policies and, specifically, where they were getting their images. Since the write-up in the Times, I didn’t expect a rapid response, but I was wrong.

Victor Wong, Chief Exec of PaperG (creators of the PlaceLocal system), sent me an email in response, less than 2 hours after my inquiry. In it he made clear that they are “definitely respectful of right holders, and make best efforts to make sure the elements used to create advertisements follow comply with copyright regulations.” Good!

He went further to list some of their requirements and processes, which include requiring requiring their customers certify that they have the rights to use any images they provide in the ads. The company itself gets images from the customers, the customers’ websites (which are then vetted to make sure the rights are ok), and PaperG has its own stock image library.

That last bit is important. I think we will be seeing more of that–self-contained image libraries.

Anyway, on the surface, at least, it is clear they are aware of the issues of copyright and, unless Victor is blowing smoke, they aren’t stealing images. I take it as a good sign that Mr. Wong responded personally to the issue.

Now, of course there is the potential for images to be used without permission–that is, an advertiser (Bob’s Tires, for example) could tell this company that he owns the photos he had taken by PhotoSue when, in fact, he doesn’t, but that is no different than the usual concerns we always have. It is important to educate our local and smaller clients most of all, because they are the least likely to know and understand how copyright works. Part of that needs to be an explanation of how the images can’t be released on the internet (unless the client purchases those rights) because of the probability of theft later by others.

Got images on Flickr or a blog or, hell, anywhere? You’re probably a victim: http://bit.ly/dmV5C1 Billions of images stolen and offered for FREE distribution.

Make sure to read the comments on that blog for more info.

The evil site down for now, but keep looking! I’m sure if/when they relaunch there will still be plenty of illegal stuff there.

My friend Paul tweeted a link to this article about unleashing a lie. Little did I know it would explain the lunacy of the Lessigites, Patryans, and their ilk, especially those poor, misguided creatives who actually think that CC or “free” can be good for their businesses and art.

Short form? A subtle lie gets great traction and is almost impossible to correct once spread.

Relatedly, why apparently reasonable people reject the truth is discussed in this article.