Just got reminded of a post on the web that uses a map of mine. I know that many people use images without caring about a license. Please don’t do it. I hope I don’t do it, and I’ve seen many that use images from Flickr and attribute the images, usually by naming authors and linking to the appropriate Flickr page. This I like.
Some people will claim fair use, but in other jurisdictions such as Switzerland where I live, there is no such exception to copyright law. Instead, we have a limited number of exceptions, one of them being the right to *cite* a work for the purpose of criticism. Just using my picture doesn’t really do that, however. There’s also a lot more info about fair use on the Wikipedia page I linked to above.
To make it short, I was expecting a credit and a link for my map somewhere. If you took the map from Fight On!, then there’s no license for reuse, and if you took the map from my Flickr account, then it says some rights reserved and links to a page saying that *attribution* is required. Thus mentioning my name (or nick) and linking it to the source page seems like the obvious thing to do.
I would also encourage all RPG Bloggers out there to not just use any ol’ image, but care about authors and their rights. If you’re talking about a product, it’s ok to use a picture of the product and be done with it. Otherwise, check whether you’re allowed to use pictures, and follow the rules. Get some very old pictures that are no longer protected by copyright; search for pictures that allow you to reuse them, often by just naming and linking the author (personally I recommend Flickr).
And if you really care about the issue, help reduce copyright protection from decades after the death of the author to a much smaller and reasonable number of years. Also, make your own stuff available under a permissive license that allows reuse and remixing. I recommend reading Free Culture; an awesome book also available for free online.
#RPG #Copyright
(Please contact me if you want to remove your comment.)
⁂
You gotta admit, Flickr does a poor job of educating users on how to use the Creative Commons licenses. Not to mention, it doesn’t facilitate it in anyway: There’s no place in Flickr where *you* can enter how people “must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor”¹. What you require should either show up in each photo’s page, or at least on your profile. No, from what I see, it just links to the license.
We often think that people should know how to follow licenses. But when people see “Creative Commons”, *if* they see it, they think it’s a free-for-all, when often it’s copyleft. The same thing happens commonly with copyleft software under the GPL. Engineers put it in a piece of hardware and ignore the license entirely. Rightly, the FSF's compliance lab sees their work as “educating users and developers working with free software” more often than litigation.
Software should enforce – or at least promote – the social (or legal) interactions it accommodates – an idea from another good Lessig book, *Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace*.
– AaronHawley 2009-06-03 16:47 UTC
---
You are right, it’s a bit hidden. But the link to change the license is there, and they link to the CC site, so I was not confused. I’m not sure how a copyright–newbie would react, however.
– Alex Schroeder 2009-06-04 19:38 UTC
---
I agree with what you’ve stated, Alex. I am guilty of using pictures in such a way on my blog. Lately, I’ve been focusing on taking my own pictures, creating my own art, or using free license pictures. I haven’t gone so far as to credit or take away the none free license pictures on older blog posts, but I’m making a conscious effort to be better about that now.
I think many bloggers who write just to write think, “I’m not making any money so why should it matter.” That is, if they even think about it at all. In reality, whether your blog makes money or not you could be liable for using a picture without attribution.
– Samuel Van Der Wall 2009-06-25 09:10 UTC