When I first began posting my photos online I did so without thought to anybody stealing them.  Soon I became aware of the potential for theft, but I wasn’t too concerned about it.  I didn’t post anything that would be a huge loss to me and though I hate to think of my children’s portraits ending up in the wrong hands, I enjoyed sharing my photos with family and friends - just like so many other people do.  Was I going to be paranoid about it or realize that the risk was minimal when you consider the volume of photos available on the Internet?

    Then began the inkling of a thought - I wanted to do more with my photos and perhaps offer my services for payment.  This still seems like a pipe dream, especially when you consider the countless number of photographers to emerge since digital photography became popular.  But then I thought, if everyone else does it, why don’t I try it too?  I’m not trying to create a full-time career. I’ve got nothing to lose. 

    But losing my photographs without any attribution becomes a problem now.  If I want to make a name for myself, I would prefer to have credit where credit is due.  As long as I post photos on the Internet, there is no way to assure that won’t happen, but there are a few things that will make it harder.  As I mentioned before, I am using smaller, low-res photos on my blog.  People may still be able to lift them, but at least I know they aren’t getting the a great quality image.  I am also putting a watermark on my photos.  The best kind of watermark should be much larger and go across the middle of the image, but I don’t like how distracting that looks.  (After all, part of the reason I have this blog is to showcase my images.)  My watermark is smaller, and sure, someone savvy might be able to clone it out, but for the average person who doesn’t realize that lifting photos is unethical, it might dissuade them.  Or perhaps if they use it with the logo, at least I’m getting the credit.

    When I opened my online shop, I considered canceling my Flickr account.  I love Flickr, but I don’t have time to participate in the groups and other photo-sharing opportunities like I used to.  (There are ways to connect with other photographers on SmugMug too, and, unfortunately, I don’t have time for that either.)  I did not have a watermark when I uploaded my photos to Flickr, nor did think much about downsizing the photo files.  It would take too much time for me to do all of that now, so I have been thinking about a Creative Commons license for a while.

    Reading this article about Creative Commons for photographers gave me the push I needed to learn more and apply the licenses to my photographs.  Flickr makes applying the license easy with built-in tools on their site.  First, I deleted all the photos I do not want to share under this license - mostly photos of my children, though I left a select few.  Then I selected the license I wanted in my settings and applied it to my photographs.

    I am using the most restrictive license Creative Commons offers.  It requires that whoever uses my photos should give me credit (preferably with a link back to my work), it needs to be used only for non-commercial purposes, and they cannot change my work in any way.  Having the license does not guarantee that people will follow the rules, but I am sure that people who do not follow the rules are probably going to steal my photos anyway.

    The advantage of doing this is that now my photos will appear in search engines when people are looking for photos under the Creative Commons license.  If my photos are used, it may generate more traffic to my photostream and website.  It certainly doesn’t hurt to try it out for awhile.

    If you’d like to take a look at my Flickr photos, click here.  And tell me if you have any experience using Creative Commons or if you have an opinion about it?