Photo Usage Policy

My images are copyrighted and can not be re-used without my permission. They are not available under Creative Commons, and can not be used freely.

I will normally approve use of my images without compensation for registered non-profit organizations, for environmental and avian/wildlife organizations such as Audubon, and whenever the request seems to make sense to allow (so you’re always welcome to ask). Zoos have my permission to use my images taken at their facilities with proper attribution. For all other uses — web sites, publications or any commercial situations — please contact me about licensing and pricing.

Images I upload to Flickr are limited in two ways: they are uploaded at no more than 1024×1024 pixels with a watermark. They may not be re-used without my permission. High-res, non-watermarked versions of images are available, let me know what size and format you need, and I can usually prepare a version of an image to your specifications for you.

All photos should have an attribution of me as the photographer and copyright holder. Here are the attribution lines I have approved. I’ve tried to be flexible and non-annoying here, and you can assume that my preference is from the top down:

If you are one of these organizations and you need a photographer for a project or an event, I’d be happy to work with you if my schedule allows. If you’re interested, please drop me a line. (Please be aware that I’m based in Northern California, and that the further away you are, the harder it’ll be for me to be able to take on your project).

I consider this a way to pay forward to these groups and organizations, and I’m happy to help out.

Again: all of my photos are Copyright © Chuq Von Rospach and all rights are reserved. You may not re-use them without my explicit permission — which I am happy to give under many circumstances, so drop me a note and we’ll talk about situation and we’ll see what I can do.

A note on my photos and Creative Commons

Please note that effective January 8, 2008, I have decided to revoke the Creative Commons license on my photos. Photos acquired prior to that date still are usable under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license .

Why did I do this?

Dan Heller (of Dan Heller’s Photography Business Blog) has been doing a series of articles that basically eviscerate the use of Creative Commons licenses on photography. His position is that CC is not only not a positive on photographs, but actively dangerous for both photographer and potential users of CC licensed photos.

I’ve used CC on my photos on flickr for years, since I strongly support the concept — but I have to admit, having started reading his pieces very skeptically, I’ve come to think he’s right. Effective today, I have removed CC from my photos and going back to an overt “contact me for permission” licensing. I’m somewhat disappointed in feeling like I should but his article on how to game the system makes using CC too dangerous even for the user of a photo, and so to me, there’s no reason to continue supporting it.

the series is in three pieces:

I encourage any of you using CC on your photos to read the series and consider how it changes your view of using CC (if it does). And I’d love to hear your opinions on all of this on either side of the issue.

As you might imagine, when I announced this change, it initiated some feedback. To help give all views of this issue, I’m including one of them here, with my reaction. My position hasn’t changed: I strongly support the concept of Creative Commons, for photos, however, the chances of abuse of CC creates risks for both providers like me and users like you; to avoid this, I will in practice license my photos as if they were under a non-commercial, no-derivated with attribution license, but I think giving a user an explicit license/approval removes the risks on both sides, so I have decided to do the licensing and track the works rather than use Creative Commons at this time. At some point, I hope to see these issues resolved to my satisfaction, but so far, I still feel this is necessary.

Nik Clayton:

Heller is badly confused. In particular, where he writes “And that licensee fee for CC-licensed images is zero.”

Here’s how licensing works. If you want to use something I’ve created then you need to have my permission / a license (ignoring, for a moment, if your use counts as “Fair use”).

I may choose to license my work in a number of different ways. And crucially, I may license it in different ways *simultaneously*.

So one license may be “You may use it non-commercially, as long as you attribute it to me”, and one license might be “You can use it non-commercially without attribution if you pay me $x”, and one license may be “You can use it commercially if you pay me $y”.

If none of these license terms are acceptable to you (as someone who wants to use my images) you are also free to contact me and negotiate a separate license with me.

Uploading images to Flickr (or other sites) and attaching a CC license to them *in no way* prevents you from making the images available to someone else under a different license. Or, for that matter, re-licensing them to someone who’s already received them under a CC license, if they want to use them in ways not compatible with the license, and only if you choose to relicense them that way.

The rest of Heller’s points seem to boil down to “If you use someone else’s photo then you have a duty to ensure that you have a license for it, and can prove it. And that’s too much hard work”. But that’s the case irrespective of the license you received the photo under. You could just as easily make the case that you receive a photo from a stock photo agency, and they lose their record of licensing it to you. If you haven’t kept a record of the transaction (invoice, associated documentation) they could just as easily come after you for license infringement.

(my opinion: Nik is correct, but ignores the practical problem that without an explicit assignment of approval or license, there is a risk that this will all turn into a “he said she said” situation. By requiring that I give explicit approval, I remove the risk that I at some later time remove Creative Commons and then make you prove that you had permission to use the image; since Creative Commons is an implicit approval, how do you then prove that? It’s a little more work on my part, but in practice, it removes many opportunities for misintepretation or confusion, even ignoring the opportunities of abuse. This way, effectively the same thing happens, but everyone knows exactly what is allowed and when it was approved. That’s a good thing in my mind, at a little cost to me for bookeeping. In practice, I’ve found most organizations were asking anyway, so this isn’t a practical hassle for them, either. And from my point of view, the ones that aren’t — should be. Just to protect themselves.)