Creative people are entitled to have control and ownership of their creative work.
As a creative myself, I fully support this. The internet, of course, makes life interesting with the freedom to share and copy. I illustrate my posts with photos, word collages, and other artwork. Some of these I’ve created. Many of them came from stock photo services. Some times, and rarely, I find them online and cannot locate a source.
I’m making it my practice (as of 1/23/2013) to use images released with a Creative Commons license as well as providing a source citation. In cases where site design allows, this will be directly below the image. In other cases, I have embedded the original artist’s name and the source location in the metadata of the image.
In some art that I used prior to 1/23/2013, I always gave a good shot at locating the original source. Sometimes this was easy, such as when a photographer posts on Flickr or some other service. Sometimes this was hard, especially if the image has been used online multiple times. While I always tried to find the original source, I wasn’t always able to do so.
So, If you are a photographer or artist, and you find your work on this site, what should you do?
1. Please accept my gratitude. I am so thankful that you are out there creating beautiful things. Thanks for creating, and sharing your work on the internet.
2. If I haven’t credited you properly, please let me know. I’ll post your credit and a link of your choice.
3. If I didn’t license your work through a stock photo service, or you did not release it via a Creative Commons license, I would be happy to either license your image or remove it, at your choice I would be happy to license your image for similar rates to an equivalent image in size and quality at the stock photo sites I use. Depending on size and quality, I generally spend between $3 – $20 / image. I can also remove your image if that’s your desire, and will gladly do so. Contact me directly. If a Google Image Search shows that your image is in wide use on the internet, please provide me with some kind of link that will verify your ownership (i.e. Something like a DeviantArt account or a Flikr account where the image appears with your ownership information will do).
Thanks again for making beautiful things!