How Do We Keep Our Rights But Share Our Work?

In a followup to yesterdays post Stolen Photograph: A New Look at an Old Problem, which saw a lot of traffic and great discussion, I thought it would be prudent to share a poignant panel discussion I was recently a part of in NYC that addresses this topic head-on. It’s a dichotomy we all likely are dealing with… Simply put, most of us creatives want it both ways. We want a system that maintains our rights to the work we create while at the same time allows us to spread our work as far and wide as the internet and new media will allow.

How can we have it both ways?

This worthwhile panel discussion called Copyright and the New Economy: Issues and Trends Facing Visual Artists, hosted recently in NYC by ASMP.org, explores precisely these challenging topics. A note on the panelists after the jump…

Appearing on this panel is yours truly, Lawrence Lessig, (Harvard Law School Professor & Founder of Creative Commons); Jeff Sedlik (Founder & CEO of the PLUS Coalition); David Carson (U. S. Copyright Office General Counsel); Liz Ordoñez (photographer); and Darrell Perry (former Director of Photography, Wall Street Journal). The panel is moderated by Jay Kinghorn.

Thanks to the ASMP for making this available.

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33 replies on:
How Do We Keep Our Rights But Share Our Work?

  1. Interesting video. When posting to facebook, I always size it low res and place our logo in the corner. What I do not like now about FB is that they allow hi-res downloads. That is now another issue or talk we have to have with clients. Our business is split from corporate to family and wedding b/c we are in a small market we shoot everything. With family and weddings the trend is to post images online, with corporate work it is mostly on their company website. Almost every bride we talk with are asking for the copyright to the wedding images, it is a trend that all wedding magazine are talking about. Copyright is an on going battle in any market but we need to educate the consumer more about our copyright and their copyright if they are creating work, most consumers do not care if they give up their copyright.

    1. Per the high-res download, I never upload a shot much bigger than 700-900px wide. So I don’t worry. Are people really uploading the full-size version through the web interface? Doesn’t that take a good while to transfer?

      My biggest issue now with Facebook & photo uploads is they screw with the shadows/highlights after you’ve uploaded. This is new since they introduced the lightbox UI. Seems like the kind of thing they’re doing to be helpful to people who upload images that are too dark, but for the photographer set, it’s aggravating to have your work altered. I wouldn’t mind a toggle buried in my settings somewhere to disable that.

  2. Just wondering… How does the creativity increase, if we teach people to use readymade stuff in their so called creative art. It doesn’t encourage anyone to invent any new. World just fills with below average stuff.

  5. Pingback: The "Ugly" Business of Photography

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