June 26th, 2009 | 
Author: While this story is not about the photographer’s rights we have been covering on this site, nevertheless it is worth mentioning. In addition to having the right to take pictures photographers are concerned about their rights once the image has been taken and that includes copyright rights. A recent article in the New York Times entitled “Flickr as an Interior Decorating Tool” by Sonia Zjawinski encourages people to download pictures from Flickr, print them and frame the print as Wall Art. Sonia briefly addresses the copyright issue in the following paragraph:
And if you’re wondering about copyright issues (after all, these aren’t my photos), the photos are being used by me for my own, private, noncommercial use. I’m not selling these things and not charging admission to my apartment, so I think I’m in the clear.
She is not in the clear. Even if the photos are being used for “private, non-commercial use, the act of copying and printing them is a copyright infringement if the photographer has an “All Rights Reserved” license attached to them. Many photographers display their work on Flickr with the expectation that they may get inquiries from people who see it. They then direct the inquirer to another site, such as Zazzle, Redbubble, Imagekind, Deviant Art, Etsy, etc. where the photographer has prints, posters or wall art for sale. Unless the photographer posts the picture on Flickr with a “Creative Commons” license do not assume that it is free for use or distribution of any kind – even if only to a wall in your living room.
Posted in Photography and the Law
Have a story to share that we did not cover? Want to discuss something in greater detail? Want to compare Nikon vs. Canon? Post it in our forum - all are welcome.
IANAL but…
If my understanding is correct, fair use law allows for personal noncommercial use of copyrighted material regardless of what license is attached to it. Printing a photo for your living room wall is no more a copyright violation than viewing it on your screen, keeping a copy in your browser cache for an indefinite period of time, or, for that matter, saving it to your hard drive and using it as a desktop background.
I understand that photographers who sell prints will lose money if people print their work for free from Flickr, but it’s not actually a copyright infringement; if a photographer makes his work available for free display in a medium built to allow easy copying, he can’t control how people use their personal copies.
If you want to protect revenues from print sales, the best way to do it is to not post high-resolution photos online in the first place. Typical web-resolution photos don’t print very well; a 640×480 72 dpi jpg file is perfect for online display (to get those vital inquiries) but won’t make a very good wall decoration.
Fair use is a complex issue and there are a lot of people who take your position on it. If you examine the original Betamax case that allowed people to record television shows for personal use the court ruled that personal recording did not reduce viewership nor did it negatively impact the business. Essentially whether you watched the show now or later really did not matter to the copyright owner.
Printing your own wall art, however, does impact negatively on the business of the copyright owner. It is more in line with music file sharing and we all know who is winning those lawsuits.
People post high res photos on Flickr for various reasons. Many print sites will grab files directly from Flickr so all you have to do is post once and sell prints on many sites simultaneously. While I try to protect my pictures by allowing only “friends and family” to have access to the high res version – I know there are ways to go around that protection. Anyone defeating that protection in order to download high res versions of my pictures is stealing by virtue of the extra illegal steps he/she is taking to grab the image.
The bottom line is just because it is online does not mean it is free to use. The reality is who is to know if someone grabs a picture off Flickr and prints it for her kitchen? What I object to is someone writing an article in the New York Times encouraging this.