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The modern news consumer ignores Weblogs and online citizen journalism at his own peril. But not everyone has the time to keep track of what's going on the Web. With this blog we hope to track the highlights of what's being discussed online so when news breaks from the Web, we're ready.

Will Femia is a Weblog enthusiast who, through good fortune and dumb luck, was introduced to the form as his position as chat producer for MSNBC.com careered into obsolescence. On any given day, Will can be found having already spent an unhealthy amount of time squinting at a computer screen.

Send a message to Will at spotter@msnbc.com



Smoke gets in your lens

Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 11:29 PM by Will Femia

Smoke3
Photo: Smoke3 by Swiss Bones / Jonny Watt **

I found out why I've been seeing smoke photo instructions lately.  According to this post it's been gaining interest around the Web following this inspiring set by Graham Jeffery.

**The Creative Commons license on this photo forbids commercial use of the photo.  Do you think I violate that by virtue of being on a commercial site or do you reckon I'm cool so long as I don't try to sell the photo?

UPDATE:  I asked the photographer how he interpreted "non-commercial" and whether it was OK if I used his photo anyway:

:: Re: non-commercial use

I'm not sure about whether it falls within the CC license but i'm more than happy for you to use the shot.  I guess the term Non-commercial can be seen different ways.  I always felt that as long as someone's not trying to directly sell my shots as their own then any other use is fine.

Thanks for the link and if you want to paste this reply on your blog you're welcome.
Cheers,
Jonny

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Comments

You are to be commended for even thinking about copyright issues here. But I believe if you were writing a story about Swiss Bones / Jonny Watt and used this photo, that would be an editorial use and therefore OK. But using it to illustrate a story you write about the subject of the photo, and getting paid for the story, is a commercial use of the photo.

Kitty, Oregon (Sent Thursday, January 25, 2007 10:30 AM)

I agree with Kitty. You are using the photo to entice more readers to your article, making this a commercial usage. It's nice to see an author question his own methodology and motives for personal actions. Keep up the good work.....

Darrel In Edinboro (Sent Thursday, January 25, 2007 11:37 AM)

I concur as well. I really love your site and applaud you for asking, but since this is a commercial job and you get paid for it, its commercial use. If this was someone's diary or something with no income on it, it would be different. Even if it is a cool photo. Keep up the great work Will

Will, Washington, DC (Sent Thursday, January 25, 2007 12:14 PM)

The fact that you have to ask whether this is ok or not tells me that you have no business producing content for others.

Scott Marcus (Sent Thursday, January 25, 2007 12:16 PM)

Kitty, to be sure I don't have a fair use argument for using the photo. My justification for it being a non-commercial use is that it's not generating any clicks for me. If you see the photo, I've already got your click. Any further clicking you do doesn't increase my hit count. (Assuming page views are the measure of my commerce.) Darrel, I would agree with your position if I were using the image as a click-here-for-more tease, but again, I get the same number of page views whether I use the photo or not. In a broader context, however, to the extent that displaying photos makes my blog more attractive and therefore might draw more readers, using this photo might contribute to a beneficial aggregate. Since I've only got two photos on the blog so far I don't have any data to know whether that's happening. I'll wait for a bit more feedback before deciding whether to take it down.

Will Femia (Sent Thursday, January 25, 2007 12:22 PM)

Here's the (abbreviated) text of the license (you're in violation of it by not having the URL listed, since by publishing the image here, you are redistributing it). IANAL, but as far as the other issues go, you may be in the clear on editorial grounds - Section 4b. states in part: "You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You [sic] in Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation." Is this use "primarily intended for [...] commercial advantage?" It might be reasonable to conclude that no, this is not your *primary* intent. Still, if there are questions (and in this case, there may be), why not ask the copyright holder in the first place? I've often found that they're more than happy to allow reproduction as long as you aren't selling their images or passing them off as your own and you're including full attribution.

protected static, Seattle, WA (Sent Thursday, January 25, 2007 12:55 PM)

Thanks for pointing that out. I added a link to the license and also learned that I'm required so provide the name of the piece, so I did that too. I looked for public contact info for the photographer but I don't see any so I'll log in with my own Flickr and contact him that way. That's the obvious answer, of course, and I don't imagine he'll be too upset at being included in this exercise.

Will Femia (Sent Thursday, January 25, 2007 1:56 PM)

Will, I'm not up on copyright issues, but as an art student, I love the fact that you include things like this in your column. It gives me wonderful ideas for my own artwork. Please don't stop! And I am a really big fan of yours. Na'yan

Na'yan Hamill, Jonesborough, TN (Sent Friday, January 26, 2007 5:51 PM)



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