In one of my very first posts, flickr = fame and fortune?, I wrote about being contacted by a photo editor at McGraw-Hill requesting permission to use a photo I had posted to my Flickr account in an upcoming book. I was thrilled and the experience has been very positive. Having taken courses in Multimedia design and working on projects that have incorporated stock photography and canned music, I am somewhat familiar with the requirements associated with copyrighted materials, and McGraw-Hill has been great.
According to this CBC report not all companies are treating Flickr images with the same degree of respect, in fact there appears to be a serious lack of understanding for copyright even amongst very large corporations such as Virgin Mobile and Manitoba Telecom Services. In my case the image is being published in an upcoming math text and we were happy to give permission without expectation of compensation, other than giving credit in the book and a copy as a memento. In the Virgin Mobile case, a family from Dallas Texas had their daughters image plastered on billboards and used in web advertising! They are taking the company to court, and I'd probably do the same! Manitoba Telecom Services apparently believed that that everything on Flickr was in the public domain and has since removed the images. I can understand that the average web surfer does not grasp the fact that even though it can be easily obtained does not grant you the right to do so, I would expect however that advertising executives would be fully aware of copyright law!
According to this CBC report not all companies are treating Flickr images with the same degree of respect, in fact there appears to be a serious lack of understanding for copyright even amongst very large corporations such as Virgin Mobile and Manitoba Telecom Services. In my case the image is being published in an upcoming math text and we were happy to give permission without expectation of compensation, other than giving credit in the book and a copy as a memento. In the Virgin Mobile case, a family from Dallas Texas had their daughters image plastered on billboards and used in web advertising! They are taking the company to court, and I'd probably do the same! Manitoba Telecom Services apparently believed that that everything on Flickr was in the public domain and has since removed the images. I can understand that the average web surfer does not grasp the fact that even though it can be easily obtained does not grant you the right to do so, I would expect however that advertising executives would be fully aware of copyright law!
