The image above is mine.
I shot it almost exactly four years ago for potential use on a postcard or something like that for the Nevada Alumni Association, which is who Christy works for. I wasn’t paid. I was actually just happy to have access to the cannon without interference and with the ability to do whatever I wanted with it. I went home that evening and edited and uploaded the shot to Flickr.
Since that time, this shot has become sort of iconic. I see it pop up all over the place when I see articles about the cannon or groups on Facebook having to do with the Nevada-UNLV rivalry. I put it on Wikipedia myself, even having to battle moderators there to keep it up. They thought I had violated copyright by uploading it and I had to convince them I was the same person who took the photo and attached the rights to it originally.
I haven’t spent a lot of time researching it (read: none), but it appears that the licensing I use on Flickr does not have an exact counterpart on Wikipedia. The key difference is that on Flickr it specifies that the photos can not be used for “commercial purposes.” That’s a tough one anyway. Creative Commons just released its findings from a study to determine general understanding of the term “non-commercial.” So, it is rather pointless to worry about the difference in licensing offered by the two entities. It is, however, extremely important to point out the similarities in the licensing. Both licenses explicitly say that “attribution” is a precursor to using the photo in any way, shape, or form. I even went as far as to add the line “Please credit Ryan Jerz when using the photo” to the photo’s page on Wikipedia.
The license has applied since the day it was uploaded. The problem I’m running into is that I while I have seen the image in several places over the past couple of years, I have only given permission to use it one time and in every other case, I have not seen any mention of who took the picture. The only instance where permission was granted for the photo was when I was asked by Silver and Blue Outfitters (full disclosure: I shoot their products for their online store) if they could use this and a photo I shot while at a football game on a poster advertising football season. The two photos are on the poster hanging at the front of their store in Meadowood Mall.
Some examples of the photo’s use include:
- Facebook group UNR vs. UNLV Tailgate and their corresponding Twitter account
- Blog post from Blogging Vegas (where the above group seems to have gotten their image)
- Blog post on Rock M Nation, a Missouri fan site—Update – Rock M Nation has added the photo credit. Thanks for that. We’ll get you Friday.
- Weird story: I was on the front page of the Nevada Appeal a while back (a photo of me touring the Stewart Indian School) and only saw it because my mom let me know I was on there. Above the photo I was in was a series of a few shots promoting upcoming local events. One of them happened to be the Nevada-UNLV football game and what photo do they use to promote that? Why, the cannon, of course. No link unless I can find the paper to scan.
- Update – Another Missouri fan site, Barking Carnival, has come upon the photo
Those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. There have been others.
I’m writing all of this to ask how you would handle these situations if it was your photo that was being used. Heck, maybe yours has been used. What would you or did you do about it? Ultimately, the only thing I’ve actually done about any of this is send out a tweet:
It should go to show that I don’t take a huge offense to the use of the photo. I actually am pretty proud that it is used in a good way. It does irk me just a bit that this photo has been used without my name being attached. I could argue that it was even used in a commercial manner (front page of a newspaper, above the fold) without asking permission or attribution. But I also believe in sharing and appreciate that my work is recognized by others as useful.
So, tell me—what would you do in a similar circumstance? What have you done? What should I do in the future?
Comments
Jim_S wrote:
I think it depends on whether you care about attribution — I don’t think you should demand attribution for attribution’s sake, but you have the right.
Also, I would look further into the Nevada Appeal situation. Unless something has seriously changed since I worked there, they would never randomly pluck a photo without seeking permission. We did it by accident once (actually re-ran a photo that we had been given one use of) and I think it cost us something like $2,000.
Perhaps it was a similar photo? Did you give the photo to UNR to distribute as its own?
Sep 22, 01:15 PM
Ryan Jerz wrote:
I’m cool with demanding attribution for the sake of attribution. I try to give it whenever I use something, which is rare anyway.
The Nevada Appeal thing was weird. It was the same photo, but it was very small and there was no caption or anything. I’m going to look at the library for a copy of that page. It was something like in the masthead, they listed weekend events. One of them was that game. Below the masthead (and my terminology may be incorrect) they had three or four corresponding pictures. The cannon was one of them. If it was 2 inches wide I’d be surprised. It was small. I only saw it because I happened to be in a photo on the front page, with my name in the caption, and my mom gets that paper. Otherwise, I’d have had no idea.
I never gave the photo to UNR to use as its own. It was printed once and that was it. I don’t know the laws well enough to understand all of this, but even if they did have permission to use it as they like, wouldn’t attribution be a part of that?
Sep 22, 02:03 PM
Laura wrote:
Legality aside, I always figure that if people can see a photo on the internet, somebody will take it. So I always go by the assumption that anything I absolutely do not want used anywhere should not be posted publicly. I know that’s extremely limiting, but I’d rather play it safe. Photos like this – I’d be in your boat. Grateful people like it, but confused about the legal ramifications. Very interesting though. Follow up on this post if you come up with anything.
Sep 22, 02:24 PM
Mike McDowell wrote:
Sticky situation, for sure. I think the problem is that most people don’t understand rights around photography or attribution. So, they do an image search on Google or Flickr, grab whatever they find, and move on. In some cases they may not even see that you’ve asked for attribution. In some cases they don’t understand. In some cases they don’t care.
Now, journalists should definitely know the rules around photography rights and attribution. Very peculiar about the Nevada Appeal.
I suppose the only way to prevent this from happening is to put a “watermark” on your photos, or a © Ryan Jerz in text somewhere on the photo. If I recall your position on this, you hate it when photos have this kind of stuff on the photos (I could be mistaken). But, until people more widely understand the rights around using somebody else’s photo, that may be the safest route.
Sep 22, 08:45 PM
Ryan Jerz wrote:
Mike, yeah, I agree that most people just don’t know. I think most people find this particular photo because of Wikipedia or Google Image Search. Being the one photo on Wikipedia makes it kill in the image search, for sure.
I’m not necessarily against watermarking. I just don’t like to change my photos by adding them. Like I said before, I’m not entirely opposed to having this shot used how it is, but I’d just like a little credit, however that can come. One of the things I did originally was upload a relatively low-rez version of the shot to Flickr (1200 × 800) so that it couldn’t be used outside of the web, if at all.
The Appeal thing was weird to me, too. I really couldn’t believe it. To be fair (if this is fair) I probably would have crucified the RGJ for doing what the Appeal did. That’s actually not fair, and I should have made a bigger deal about the Appeal than I did. Oh well.
Sep 22, 09:23 PM
Jim_S wrote:
I would definitely ask the Appeal how that happened. I’m not in the business of defending their use of the photo, but I feel like there has to be an explanation, even if if the explanation was it was a mistake.
If you had approached them at the time, I’m sure they would have run it in the correction box, hopefully with an explanation of how the error happened. Transparency and accuracy is biblical at the newspaper, so I really doubt it was deliberate, unless they had a greenhorn on the desk that night, which happens.
Sep 23, 10:58 AM
Laurel wrote:
Some somewhat random comments:
Two-thirds of the “referring sites” on my garden blog are Google image searches. I have not made any effort to see if any of my images have been lifted because I don’t want to have to deal with it (emotionally or proactively).
Like you, I choose to use only low resolution images so they can’t be used (effectively) in print.
I feel old-fashioned in saying this, but I’m appalled that most people think everything on the Internet is free for the taking.
It’s important to distinguish between attribution and copyright. Copying copyrighted material is illegal (and material is copyrighted upon publication), but I don’t know that omitting attribution is illegal. Omitting the attribution is definitely rude in my opinion.
If you gave the cannon photo to the Nevada Alumni Association to publish (first), wouldn’t it be the owner of the copyright? But you do say you “attached the rights to it” originally, so maybe you didn’t give it to them outright.
If anyone asked me to use one of my blog images, I would gladly give permission with the only “charge” being attributing it to me.
Sep 23, 02:28 PM
Allen wrote:
I’m seeing these kinds of issues all over the Internet these days. Some folks seem to have a very subjective view of copyright infringement.
I’ve seen cases where people cut and paste an entire article into their site instead of linking to the source material. Everything on the Web should be treated as intellectual property. People always should obtain permission prior to use. And if they do receive permission, an attribution is the least they can do. What’s even nicer is to include a link to the content owner’s site so people can learn more about his or her work.
I’m hoping issues such as this iron themselves out as more people become Web savvy. Right now, there does seem to be a definite “free-for-all” mentality out there.
Sep 24, 11:11 PM
Commenting is closed for this article.
Ryan Jerz is an all-around good guy who shoots photos and video, builds websites, and works in athletics at the University of Nevada, Reno. He received a Masters Degree in 2007 from the University of Nevada, Reno's Reynolds School of Journalism.