I got an email earlier today through Flickr…
I used a picture that you licensed under creative commons
I was wondering if my usage of your picture and username was in the way in which you had intended by releasing it to the creative commons.
I made a video for the US election ..but due to time constraints .and a problem with the music copyright .. I was forced to release it with out it being to the best of my capacity… anyways
..please pass this video on .. or tell me why I suck ..
www.myspace.com/makepoliticalsnowviamedia
or if you use torrent its available via mininova.org
if you can Vote or haven’t yet.. Vote Obama , the world is counting on us!
if you wish you could vote .. then just send this video to random Us sources/people .. maybe you will make a difference. once again .. thank you so much for your contributions to the creative commons. keep it up !
– james
After looking at the site, skipping through the video, etc, I figured out what photo he was using (pictured above). I wrote back to him saying that the usage was fine and that he should maybe think about using a different media other then MySpace and YouTube for his content. An hour or so later something was nagging in the back of my head. I went back to check the MySpace page. I noticed my name was listed under the band section of the page and that no indication of any copyright was listed, Creative Commons or not. What also bugged me was the bulk of the textual content on the page…
this project had different music .. but Some bag named Taylor from Mendocino, California that had composed, performed and recorded the original piano music decided to be non cooperative
But Taylor is acting like a staunch republicanby threatening legal action if I don’t remove the song .. or disclose my Identity and enter in a contract with him .. here are is own words ….
It continues on to print out Taylor’s polite email asking James to not use his audio if he’s not willing to to discuss up front some sort of contract. By the sounds of it Taylor’s reply implied that it would possibly be free for use. This some how irked me more then the improper use of my Creative Commons material, which prompted another email reply to James…
Actually I’m going to take my last reply back, slightly.
I just reviewed your work and noting that it doesn’t comply with the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license that the image of mine you’re utilizing is filed under. If you view the photograph again you’ll notice there’s a link to the right that states “Some Rights Reserved” which will take you to the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 page for more information on what that license means.
Here are the current violations listed here for you…
By listing me as a band member you are specifying that I help create your work and by doing so also state that I endorse the work. This is not the case, you have simply grabbed an image I’ve posted under the CC and used it for your own work.
I would appreciate it if you could remove me from the band listing, and credit me as the owner of an image under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license that you’ve used in your video.
Also there are no attribution within the video, which means that anywhere that links the video must contain this information. This includes the MySpace page where the video is embedded, the YouTube page where the video lives, and the torrent tracker (the easiest thing to do would be to have a text document which contains some information along with the video within the tracker).
You have no visible licensing information within the video or any page where the video is embedded. As per the CC, you must distribute the video with a similar license for it to meet the requirements set by the original CC on my image.
Now to further explain myself, I’m all for you using my material, but the way that you’ve included me within the band credits very much makes it feel like I am 100% aligned with your views, which I don’t appreciate. I am not saying this due to any political outlooks I have (infact I agree with the majority of the things your video attempts to communicate and yes I did vote today), what I don’t agree with is how you conducted yourself when dealing with a copyright issue.
As much as Creative Commons is a great thing, you still need to conduct yourself professionally with others who wish you to respect licensing of their materials, regardless of your use or views you want to convey. I’m not going to stop you from doing whatever you like with my photo or how you want to portray me (or what opinions you have of me after reading this), and won’t threaten you with legal action, but I have high hopes you’re a smart person and will understand my point of view on thiis.
Thanks.
I find all this to be interesting, especially with my lack of enthusiasm for creating more opinionated political spam then there already is (like 95% of my LJ friends and Twitter feeds for the past few weeks). I could give a rats ass about what direction his political views are, but I’m not up for him using my material along side something where he’s bad mouthing someone for being proper and polite about material use under copyright. Pretty hopeful that he’ll read this and not feel as though I’m attacking him. At the same time I think I’ve put far too much energy into this as is.
