Monthly Archives: July 2007

Some of you have probably noticed news stories over the past week about Virgin’s use of CC licensed photographs as part of an advertising campaign. Here are some thoughts floating around the CCau office about the case.

The basic story is that Virgin found photos on Flickr that had been licensed under CC licences, and used them in a series of billboard and web advertisements around Australia. The advertisements are essentially the photographs with captions written across them – which were often insulting to the people pictured in the photographs – and the tagline ‘are you with us?’. Controversially, Virgin did not inform the photographers that they were using the images, or the people in the photographs.

There has been a lot of discussion online about the legal and ethical implications of the campaign. Some of the photographers have criticised the campaign. Some of the people captured in the photos (and in particular the brother of a 15 year old girl who was the subject of an insulting tagline) have also expressed displeasure. On the other hand, other photographers have come forward saying they approve of the campaign, and that this is why they CC license their photos in the first place.

From a CC standpoint, there are a few legal issues to consider. If the photographs Virgin used were licensed to allow commercial use and the company complied with any other licence restrictions (ie Attribution, No Derivatives, ShareAlike) this kind of use is almost certainly permitted under the CC model. However, there are some questions about whether Virgin has followed these steps. For example:

* At least one of the images Virgin used appears to currently be under a licence that doesn’t allow commercial use – though it’s not clear whether it was under a broader licence in the past.
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Test by
Jessica Coates is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at
creativecommons.org.au. Continue reading →

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Unlocking the Potential Through Creative Commons

&uot

july 2007

artcast digital distribution workshop
friday 13 july 2007 @ qut creative industries precinct, musk avenue, kelvin grove, brisbane :: $220 per registrant (inc GST) :: hosted by artcast, cci + iCi

Artwork is going online. Websites, iPods and Mobile Phones are becoming the main channels through which individuals access, consume and interact with content. People are increasingly expecting that cultural products be available all the time in a range of formats.

Forms of culture which are not delivering digital and online parallels are cutting them selves off from the new generation of patrons. For commercial galleries, failing to go digital limits access to new markets. For artist run galleries, digital distribution is a cost effective way of expanding audience and reach. For institutional galleries, new ways of accessing gallery owned content can help fulfill their obligation to provide access to the State catalouge.

To have full exposure of cultural capital galleries need to find a way to efficiently and effectively of digitally distributing their catalouge. Projects like Artcast can not only deliver these services, but can dramatically increase the value of a gallery’s catalouge and of the profile of art.

Publishing artworks online can require a lot of technical knowledge. The workshop is aimed at enabling art gallery staff and artists to publish artworks online. The workshop will cover open content licensing (OCL), digital distribution, open business models and the Artcast egallery.

Speakers
Speakers at the workshop include:

Jessica Coates – Digital rights expert (Project Manager, Creative Commons Clinic)

Elliott Bledsoe – Digital rights expert (Project Officer, Creative Commons Australia and Creative Director, Artcast)

Justin Brow – Digital Content Producer (Producter + Research Associate, Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation)

Leigh Grey-Smith – Web designer (Creative Director, Greytone Designs)

For the program and more information click here.

see the media resource centre’s event listing

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