[Tim Wilson]

[Bob Zelin] ” I will make sure that Creative Cow does a detailed story on you, your department, and this test with the new hardware”

Bob, you take care of the bourbon. The story is officially greenlit.

Yr pal,
Timmy

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

[stan welks] “if the license for a CC image requests attribution, you have to credit them, regardless if it inconveniences your layout, etc.”

In general, that’s true. Using a CC image without attribution is exactly the same as using ANY kind of unlicensed media. Even if you can get away with it, it’s the responsibility of artists like us to protect the rights of other artists, no matter how inconvenient it is.

HOWEVER, here’s what the license actually says, with my added boldface: “You may satisfy the conditions in any reasonable manner based on the medium, means and context in which the Licensed Material is used.”

So, imagine you’re using a CC graphic in a TV spot. NOBODY gets credit in a spot. Mayyyybe if there’s a cross-licensing deal for the music, but mostly, nobody gets credit.

Movies, broadcast episodes, etc — EVERYBODY gets credit. You will indeed see a Creative Commons attribution in movie credits now and again these days.

You mentioned that you’ll be using them in Photoshop and Illustrator, but I still don’t how or where you’ll be using them. For a print ad or brochure? NOBODY gets credit. Period. For a book, magazine or newspaper? EVERYBODY gets credit.

ALSO NOTE: many CC attribution licenses do NOT cover the use of the files as front or back cover photos of books or magazines. For those, you’ll need to contact the author, who’s clearly going to be open to some reasonable accommodation, or they wouldn’t have made it available for free in so many other contexts.

Where attribution is appropriate, it should also note whether you’re using the work in itself, whether you’re creating a derivation (say, using it as one element in a multi-layered file), the TITLE of the work if there is one, AND a link to the CC license itself…

…AND, in most cases, the license calls for you to make your work available under the same license. If you’re using a free license, YOUR work using THAT work has to be freely available under the same terms.

If you’re doing this work for a client’s website, that’s obviously pretty unlikely. If the client says, no way, we’re not going to let anybody use that image then case closed. You can’t use the file under the terms of the license, which means you can’t use it, period.

When in doubt about anything, contact the artist. My guess is that if you say, “I can’t give you credit because the picture is part of a multi-layer file in a print catalog where NOBODY gets credit, but I want to let you know how much I value your work, and will credit you elsewhere” or something, the answer you get will be along the lines of, “Wow! Nobody has gotten in touch before! That’s great!”

Or maybe they’ll say, “Sorry man. I’m not in it for the money, but I AM in it for the credit.” It’s a no-go, end of story.

It goes back to the central issue that you identified — there are rules for using other people’s work, and the ONLY ethical position is to FOLLOW THE RULES. One set of rules requires payment, another set requires attribution, which may require jumping through an extra hoop or two.

You can finesse EITHER of these if you contact the rights holder, who will often waive their rights or help you in some other way. Ironically, most people who’ll waive payment will require attribution.

Here’s some more information on the specifics of HOW you should be handling attribution.

You’ll notice that it assumes that you’ll be using the file on the web. That’s why, if you’re not working on the web, your next step might be to get in touch with the artist directly. My assumption continues to be that they’re not going to make this hard on you, or they wouldn’t have posted their work on the commons in the first place.

Thanks again for bringing this up, Stan. Too many conversations about rights in the COW are people looking for ways to not pay rights holders. Standing ovation AND the crowd doing the wave for you trying to do the right thing.

[Tim Wilson]

This may sound obvious, but the rule of thumb is to stick with the format you’re using, giving credit to the Creative Commoner the same way you’re crediting anyone else on the project.

The larger point is to make sure that the credit STAYS with the original artist as it moves downstream. But if the stream ends with you, some extra considerations enter in.

For example, pick up your favorite magazine. Chances are good that every photo credit for the entire issue is provided in super-tiny print somewhere in the back of the magazine. Another approach is to tuck all the credits for a single story right at the staple. Newspapers tend to put photo credits in the caption.

In other cases, for both newspapers and magazines, attribution goes right on the picture itself.

But if you’re creating a graphic, say, an print ad, or just doing a single element on a web page, go with what you’re using for other artists. If nobody else is getting credit (you, your designer, Getty Images, etc), then sorry Creative Commoner, that’s just how it’s going to go. Zero credits means zero credits. The only name on there is the clients.

I’m always comfortable with the latter, especially if the element is going no further. That is, you may have used a photo taken by Commoner1842, but now that it has been incorporated into your work, nobody ELSE can use it as a separate element. It has reached the end of its potential distribution through you.

If you want to be super nice, post credit somewhere else. Your website or twitter feed for example. Or drop the artist a line, with a link to the work. That’s kind of above and beyond, but the fact is that the ONLY thing they want is credit, so figure out a way to be a nice person in a way that’s appropriate to the work you’re supplying to your client.

And to be honest, there have been some names that just weren’t appropriate for use in a COW venue. 🙂 And with no way to get in touch with the artist, I had to leave things at skipping their naughty name, with, regrettably, no attribution, even where I’d otherwise have been willing. You can only do what you can do.

That may sound ramble-y, and I’m happy to expand where needed. I feel really strongly about the value of Creative Commons artists, and have used quite a bit of their work at the COW over the years, always taking care to do SOMETHING if possible, even if it has to be something a little different every time.

You’re a good dude for asking. 🙂

[Tim Wilson]

Never any trouble to look into something for our members. 🙂

I’ll also note for the other folks reading along that Joel Holland at VideoBlocks jumped right on this, and connected Andy with VB’s Nikki Jones to get it resolved as quickly as possible. Our experience, and our observation of our members’ experiences, is that, yes, these glitches happen from time to time, but VideoBlocks is a company that steps up for its customers.

Glad to help, and glad to see a happy ending!

Best,
Tim

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

Hi Andy,

Our newsletters typically go out to hundreds of thousands of subscribers, so I’m sure we’d be hearing plenty about any issues.

Not that we’re able to provide tech support for a cart on somebody else’s site, but we take this sort of thing seriously when it comes to COW members, and our reputation for putting them in contact with the most reputable vendors.

We’ll look into it right away, and if you don’t mind, will get back in touch with you directly add soon as we have something for you.

Best,
Tim

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

Not a veto at all, except in the rarest of circumstances. Over 1000 posts a day go up in the COW, and if we spike one a month, that’s a lot.

I’m sorry, though, Dean — I don’t see anything of yours lingering in the moderation queue. Want to try posting it again?

Best,

Tim Wilson
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

Working on it this very second. Stand by for an update. 🙂

[Tim Wilson]

Okay, there are two things going on, and there are a couple of threads where they’ve converged to make a bit of a mess. Three quick points, and two questions for you.

First, we recently added a Delete button for posts. This is actually a requirement in some countries, and in fact, we’ve had folks from 200 different nations and territories visit us in the last year.

As it stands now, deleting a post deletes replies to it as well. Do you think it would be better if that wasn’t the case?

Second, there are folks in the COW and its predecessor community who’ve been with us for over 15 years now. We’d heard quite a few complaints over the years that seeing the same questions coming up again and again was making them disinclined to keep participating. We created a feature called Hide Newbie Posts that’s on the first page of your account settings.

The default is to have that setting On, meaning, you will of course see your own posts and responses to it, but a combination of the age of an account and keywords in the post lead to certain kinds of posts becoming deprioritized.

It appears to have been working, because we’re no longer getting complaints about newbies, and nobody is complaining that their questions aren’t getting answered.

We talk about this among ourselves regularly, whether Hide Newbie Posts should be On or Off as its default. Since it’s unlikely that most people know that it exists at all, getting this right is a pretty big deal.

SOOOOOO….do you think everyone should see every post by default? And make them DECIDE to block some automatically? My GUESS is that most people would prefer the default to be OFF, because most of the people here are generally interested in helping other people….but that’s me. What about you?

In any case, the choice belongs on the settings page — but how do we draw people’s attention to this feature? It’s pretty easy for new members, because they’re seeing the settings page. But some of the older members we created this feature for haven’t been to their profile pages for a decade or more. Was making the choice for them the right call?

Anyway, those are my questions. How should we handle post deletions, and how should we handle hiding newbie posts? Because right now, yeah, on a couple of threads, it looks pretty messy to have all those holes.

My third point is that, with over 1000 posts a day in the COW, I don’t get to see too many threads myself, and I almost never get to read them closely enough to see that there are gaps. I absolutely rely on you contacting me directly, or going to the Letters To The COW Team forum to put these issues where I can see them. I’m only on this thread at all because somebody alerted me to it.

Feel free to talk to me about anything else that you feel needs my attention of course, or anything related to the last 50 years of pop music and the Boston Red Sox in particular. Talk to me about movies and TV in the TV & Movie Appreciation Forum when you get a chance, and in general, have a lovely day.

Yr pal,
Timmy

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

[John Godwin] “I want YOUR job…”

It’s a pretty darn good job. 🙂 Of course, coming into it, I had a well-established track record of talking about work, rather than working…..

Although having said, that, I’m getting around to documenting some of the work I actually DID do, including this round of nature shooting where I was swimming with alligators, and an explanation of why I wasn’t wearing any underwear:

[Tim Wilson]

[John Godwin] “I think you need to change the forum title to “FCPX IS Professional – Now What?'”

For the forum at large, that question was answered within seconds of the first download. The “not at all professional” thing gave way in a remarkably short time for all but a few people, to, for most others, somewhere along the spectrum between “Not professional enough yet,” and “I’ve never seen anything more professional in my life.”

Hence the debate. 🙂

But there was certainly no intent on our part to suggest anything in OUR opinion, one way or another. I certainly yapped as much as anybody in the early days, but never about that. My capacity for having an informed opinion on THAT would require actually working for a living, rather than simply talking about working for a living. LOL

Not that that has stopped most writers on most other websites. LOL