Strictly Commercial

Hawaiian sunset by Powerdinky

A few weeks back, I was working on an events calendar for a local magazine when I found myself looking for images a few columns I had to fill. Since many of the events were musical acts, I turned to Flickr to see what I could find. As usual, even the most obscure groups had a number of fantastic photos taken during live performances. Brilliant stage light splashed across the musicians, horns gave bright flares all against a deep black background. Perfection. I noticed the first few I looked at were marked “All Right Reserved.” So, I just searched for the bands within “The Commons,” the search modifier that only looks for images with a Creative Commons license. Nothing.

So, I went down the list of other bands. The general search uncovered more gems, while again a search for anything with a Creative Commons license yielded a goose egg. The more searching I did, the more frustrated I became realizing that the wealth of creative resources in Flickr was needlessly bound by copyright.
Continue reading Flickr’s Fatal Flaw…