
This photograph is free - aclark
http://standblog.org/blog/post/2012/01/11/This-photograph-is-free
======
aspir
I hope everyone understands, including the authors themselves, that each
author in this back-and-forth is correct. The right to give and the right to
charge are inherently personal decisions that only the owner of the photo can
make.

This was the main frustration that I had with the "this photograph is not
free" comments, as well as the tone the author of this article takes. It
doesn't matter what the commentators claim the various photos are 'worth' --
it's not their right to speculate, and just because you released your material
CCL, you don't have the right to feel more privileged than someone who chose
to exercise their right to be compensated.

~~~
yangez
This is not entirely accurate. The original "this photograph is not free"
article wasn't an attempt to prevent his own images from being copied. It was
an attempt to influence OTHER photographers not to give away their photos for
free.

I've worked for a long time in the photography industry. In my experience
there are two things that justifiably piss photographers off in a very major
way:

1\. Getting their photo ripped off without permission, because it loses them
money.

2\. Seeing a publication use another photographer's photo for free (even with
permission), because it loses EVERYBODY money.

If good photographers are constantly giving photos away and not charging,
professional photography prices and value naturally goes down. It's kind of a
tragedy of the commons - photographers who DO give away work get more
recognition, but they lower the overall value of their industry.

~~~
mrgoldenbrown
I can understand why this would piss photographers off, but I can't agree with
the "justifiably" part. When I ride my bike home from a bar instead of taking
a cab, the cab driver might be pissed. Should he pissed at bike manufacturers?
I'm sure horse whip makers were pissed at Ford for selling cars, and lowering
the overall value of their industry. Why should photographers get special
protection from market forces?

~~~
pm90
Yes, but I think you are missing an essential point in your examples: a) A
bike is not really a replacement for a cab (say you want to carry some goods)
b) Cars are a different technology from horse-carriages The thing is that the
photos produced by all kinds of photographers are _almost_ the same ( of
course, the better ones produce photographs of better quality, but they are
still photographs). I think that the analogy that you used was perhaps not
accurate..

~~~
mrgoldenbrown
It doesn't matter if the service is exactly the same or not, it just matters
whether it meets the need of the consumer. In my example, consumers needed a
way to get from point A to point B. Both a cab or a bike could do that. If you
prefer, I could have asked if Ferrari should get pissed that Kia is offering
cars for a super cheap price. Then we are comparing cars to cars.

------
miahi
Just a couple of hours time difference and it would be copyrighted[1], and not
by him.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_cl...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_claims)

~~~
gbhn
This is a really interesting case about how we need to confront the issue of
rights when something is made public. It seems a little ludicrous to suggest
that something like the Eiffel tower lights display is copyright, when it is
obviously put on for the public purpose of having millions of people see it.

On the other hand, it seems ludicrous to demand that because someone puts a
picture on their web page, it is now public in the same way, and that the
creator should not be able to control the market for it.

I do think it is worth thinking about the idea that there is a threshold of
publicness after which point a work ought to become subject to mandatory
licensing. The intuition is that if a work is kept sufficiently private, it is
not involved in a substitutable market for similar items. If it is made
sufficiently public, then it is competing in a market for other substitutable
creative goods of the same sort. Another intuition is that there's a threshold
of publicness after which it becomes fair to assume that the rightsholder is
interested in wide distribution more than controlling use, or that after a
certain threshold of publicness, a creative product has been introduced into
the public sphere as a cultural artifact that others ought to be able to use
freely.

Right now all we have is a binary move from rightsholder-retains-complete-
rights to public domain, which has led to the craziness of current copyright
law. If we had some intermediate stages of publicness and the rights split
between creator and public, perhaps we could come up with something more
sensible.

------
mrgoldenbrown
"Most of all, I have realized a long time ago that in a world where everyone
has a camera, a lot of free time and fantastic tools to publish stuff, there
is not a lot of money to be made anymore by taking pictures."

For me that is the best rejoinder to the somewhat whiny tone of the "this
photo is not free" post. The author has missed the point that certain types of
photos are accurately valued at "free for credit", because it is easy to
obtain them at that cost. His real beef should be with this fact, not the fact
that people are asking him for photos at market prices.

We would all like to be able to charge money for things we would do anyway,
but reality does not always oblige us. When my neighbor asked me for my grass
clippings to add to his compost pile, I told him sure, but only if I could
charge him $1000, based on the cost of my lawnmower, gas, and labor. After
all, he will be able to use that compost as fertilizer eventually, and why
should he profit from my hard work without compensating me? Sadly, my neighbor
did not buy my argument, because grass clippings, like certain photos, are
neither rare nor hard to come by.

~~~
feralchimp
I'm surprised that more people here aren't focusing on that line of the post.
It was the most interesting line to me, and even more interesting is that your
reaction was a mirror opposite of mine.

There is not a lot of money to be made anymore by taking _competently focused,
competently-exposed sunset pictures of the Eiffel Tower._

Great tools lower the barrier of entry for achieving technical competence in
capturing an ever-widening variety of beautiful subjects. So for someone who
expects to turn their ability to do that into a professional photography
career, fine, "there is not a lot of money to be made in doing that."

But there is a _shitload_ of money to be made taking pictures, even when a 100
megapixel camera and .96 lux 50mm prime lens can be had for the same price as
a pack of cigarettes, because professional photographers tend not to get paid
to walk around tourist destinations snapping pretty shit all year.

------
noonespecial
All of the professional fotogs I know are paid not for photos the _have_
taken, but for photos people would _like them_ to take. The photos that they
have taken are just proof that if you hire them to take photos for you, they
will be good.

In this way, I think this author's point of view is slightly more economically
advantageous than the "this photo cost $6500" guy.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"All of the professional fotogs I know are paid not for photos the have
> taken, but for photos people would like them to take"_

You don't know any stock photogs?

~~~
sethg
Is it possible to make a living as a stock photographer these days? I’m
curious how people manage that.

~~~
potatolicious
The stock photo industry is getting bigger, while profit-per-photo is
plummeting. There are still a number of well-known photogs in this space, some
of whom are doing remarkably well for themselves.

My impression of that industry is that it's all about process - to make a
living doing it you need to have an extremely streamlined process and churn
out a _vast_ amount of work.

------
tptacek
Or, "How not to make money selling software: a succinct illustration of cost-
based and market-based (specifically, value-based) pricing in just two comment
threads."

Why can Github charge FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER YEAR for a local install of
Github and succeed, impressively so, despite a small army of nerds pointing
out how inexpensive it is to run one's own Git server and Gitorious? Why does
37signals have an office with walls made of 37signalsium (really, seen it,
it's fuzzy) and trendy furniture despite selling software that the nerdosphere
can clearly duplicate? Why does Yammer even consider publishing a
$5/user/month price for software that is among every web geek's top-5-most-
likely-personal projects?

Answer: they don't sell gypsum.

Cost based pricing, which works for gypsum sales but not so much for software,
suggests that the price of a nice photo should be the price of the gas to get
to and from the photo shoot, possibly divided by the number of people
interested in buying the photo, plus maybe throw a couple bucks in there and
buy yourself something nice, photographer.

Value-based pricing says, "how much it cost me to create the photo is
_irrelevant_ ". YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES, say the nerds. THAT'S EXACTLY
WHAT I WAS SAYING! But value-based pricing continues: "no, what matters is how
much it would cost _you_ to make that photo and how much benefit it brings".

How much it would cost _you_ to make that photo: (say) $6000, perhaps divided
by the number of different photos you'd take given the same setup (but then
also scaled back up to account for the headcount or professional services
required to take lots of pictures).

How much benefit? It depends. I could take 10,000 words listing out factors in
figuring it out. Most importantly: what are the substitutes to this photo and
how much do they cost? For some businesses, clip art of the Eiffel Tower
suffices to bring 80-90% of the value. For others (like ad-sales print
publications), comparables might also be very expensive.

Now, the extent to which the YOUR business benefit from my photo exceeds MY
cost to produce the photo is MY ADVANTAGE IN PRODUCING PHOTOS (the extent to
which your _cost_ exceeds _my_ cost is my "comparative advantage"†††, and if
it's a positive number possibly suggests that I'm the one who should be doing
the photos in any case, since you have better ways to put your money to use).
Having an advantage is a _good thing_. Among other things, it's a key reason
why software startups are lucrative, and why we don't all work on line-of-
business software for non-software companies.

It's probably true that a photo of a sunset isn't worth $6,000. But,
exclusivity aside, the value of the photo also has nothing to do with how much
it cost the photographer to take each shot at the margin, and it has nothing
to do with the cost to make each marginal sale. What matters is how much it
costs the _customer_ to replace that value with a substitute, and in that
analysis the $6000 set-up cost, while not determinative, is relevant
perspective.

The moralism in these threads is an irrelevant sideshow. Situationally, the
nerdosphere oscillates between extremes when trying to compute valuations for
stuff with intangible-seeming benefits. Today, the nerdosphere apparently
thinks either (a) every photo is a precious snowflake or (b) photo costs
should be scaled by the current price of hard disk storage. Yesterday, it was
whether it's right for Github to charge per repo. Before that, it's whether
it's fair to have markets for spec work like 99designs.

None of that matters. What matters is, is there a market for what you're
selling, and will it clear based on the model you use to price stuff on the
market. Clearly there is a market for high-quality photography. Clearly it is
not a cost-based market like gypsum, or there would not exist sites selling
photos with royalties attached, or photos costing hundreds of dollars ---
which clearly those sites do exist. So instead of arguing about how much
photos should cost --- because, again, they cost what the market says they
cost, not what you think it costs to make them yourself --- think instead
about how this discussion applies to your own work product. More than you
think it does, is my guess.

††† _(Actually this isn't all what comparative advantage is; comparative
advantage says, if there's a market for widgets and a market for photos and
you're better at widgets than photos and I'm better at photos than widgets,
then I should do widgets and you should do photos, which is a subtly different
idea, but the point stands either way.)_

~~~
bradleyland
Being more on the business side than the development side, I completely
identify with what you're saying. The statement that value is derived from the
cost of the alternative is central to market thinkers, of which I identify
myself as.

However! This statement struck me as out of place:

> The moralism in these threads is an irrelevant sideshow.

There is not 100% agreement on the moralism of copying digital goods. There
is, agree or disagree, a lack of 100% acceptance of copyright as it stands
today. This introduces an alternative that costs $0, which messes up the whole
market equation. This moral conflict has to be resolved before you can arrive
at a market price for digital goods.

~~~
tptacek
We software developers are in a whole heap of a lot of trouble if we expect
the broad market to dignify the idea that digital goods are legitimately
priced at "what they cost to copy".

~~~
bradleyland
I think the moral position of "copy anything" is definitely questionable, but
time and time again we've seen the actual markets compete in this way. The
decline of music sales is practically a case study in this fact. Whether or
not someone will openly state that they evaluate the "cost to copy" option is
one thing, but how they act is another. I can't claim that I've never pirated
a movie or music, thus I have no moral basis for dismissing that position out
of hand.

I'd take the contrary view. If you _don't_ consider "cost to copy" a market
competitor, you're in a whole heap of trouble. Position your business in a way
that isn't exposed to this type of alternate-pricing, or be prepared to
compete with it.

~~~
tptacek
Since appropriating someone else's photo for commercial use without
compensation will assuredly get you sued and incur costs far greater than
simply licensing the photo, there's an irony to the fact that the discussion
on HN about photos is couched in moralism, even though morality is way less
relevant to the photo case than it is to the software case (you can easily
appropriate software without paying for it, as GPL violators do every day).

------
vectorpush
Photographers have a right to demand payment for their photos.

Nobody has a license to use a photographer's photos without her permission.

Photos are an incredibly cheap commodity (that span the gamut of relative
price and quality, like everything else)

It is not unreasonable that photo consumers expect low to no cost photographs.

I think we're all mostly in agreement here.

------
joshwa
The comparative advantage the professional assignment or stock photographer
brings to the table isn't just creating a "good enough" photograph, it's about
creating the RIGHT photograph for the client.

This is why microstock and craigslist haven't completely destroyed the market,
since the professional can reliably create the RIGHT photo for the assignment
(or in the case of stock, consistently predict and create the exact images the
target market needs).

But it does exert downward pressure. The photo editor/art buyer is always
cost-conscious, and whereas she used to only have the option of professional-
quality-work at professional rates, now there is a huge pool of "good enough"
photos at vastly lower cost. Buyers of photography, as it turns out, aren't
actually that discriminating, so more and more frequently they're opting for
the "good enough" photo instead of the RIGHT photo.

And this is where the professionals start to get irked. It'd be one thing if
the new competition were undercutting them with similar-quality work at lower
cost. It's be they're being undercut by work that is often objectively lower
in value to the client, and they know the client would be better served.

It's actually quite analogous to the issue of outsourcing: a vast new pool of
cheaper but lower-quality labor supply becomes available, and many firms move
operations overseas. The end-product is crappier but cheaper. Nobody actually
cares about quality, and given the choice, they'll go for cheaper and "good
enough" over expensive and good.

Interestingly, Apple is somehow managing to upend this paradigm by producing
really-good quality product at premium-but-not-ridiculous prices through
design and manufacturing innovation and exceptional marketing, and is taking
back market share from the mid-tiers. I can't think of how the photo industry
as a whole can accomplish this, though, since it's B2B rather than B2C, and
it's an army of independent professionals and not a unified association.
(There's a legal limit on how much the industry can coordinate: the major
photographers' trade organization was fined for price-fixing years ago
becaused they had published pricing guidelines.)

(DISCLAIMER: I worked in the photo industry for years, and still shoot the
occasional assignment)

~~~
timwiseman
_Nobody actually cares about quality, and given the choice, they'll go for
cheaper and "good enough" over expensive and good._

I agree with your overall point. But this one is more nuanced. In things that
are of little significance, "good enough" is, well, good enough, and people
won't pay more than they have to.

But you can charge a premium for even a tiny advantage, when that advantage
matters to the people buying. The very best baseball players are paid very
well, but those right below the very best get a small faction of that, and
those right below them get the joy of playing and not much else.

Closer to home, I recently spent over $400 (and know people that have spent
much, much more) on a Go set with a solid spruce board, kaya bowls, and onyx
stones because I valued the aesthetics when I played, even though I could get
a perfectly workable cardboard set for $20. But I am highly cost sensitive in
just about every other area of my life.

~~~
joshwa
I should rephrase that to "the organization doesn't care about quality". The
customer (you) might care, but since you're only consuming the end-product
your decision has a lot less influence.

This is definitely an organizational behavior, as the person buying the
product isn't the same person that consumes it.

------
davidw
"Mozilla Europe: Founder and president"

So ultimately, his money comes from Google advertisements, which are _not_
free. He can afford to do photography as a hobby because he has income from
another source, that can be traced back to a scarce good.

If all information goods were free, the power would shift to those who
actually have something scarce to sell, which would _likely_ mean fewer
information goods of some kinds because some people at the margin could no
longer afford to produce them if they were no longer able to generate an
income by doing so.

------
ljf
I still love the fact that on the website of the original blog poster (
<http://www.johnbmueller.com/index2.php?v=v1> ) that until yesterday he was
illegally streaming music by a band (Frau Frau) along with his photo
slideshow. I wonder how much he was paying the artists/bands? I guess nothing
as since I notified him and the bands the music has strangely disappeared... I
wonder how much he owes them? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frou_Frou_(band)>

------
bane
As somebody who pretends to make art, I think that both sides of this argument
are correct and valid. If you make art, and you want to charge whatever you
want for it, more power to you and good luck. If you make art and give it
away, awesome!

If you just make it and keep it to yourself, just for your own personal
fulfillment, sweet!

Or all put another way, if you like somebody else's art, but object to their
charging something for it, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from
learning the craft and producing it yourself...and you might get even more out
of it then.

------
loup-vaillant
Yet another example of the tension between scarcity and abundance.

Our economy is based on scarcity. Which means that anything abundant tend to
see its price driven down to zero. Making a living by selling such goods _as
if they were scarce_ is increasingly difficult. Donations seems to work
somewhat, though.

If everything (including food and housing) were abundant, we wouldn't even
need money, and making a living out of music, photography, or software
wouldn't even be discussed of. But we don't live in that world…

…Yet. The way things are evolving, more and more goods have the potential to
be effectively abundant. Especially those who have bounded demand, like food
(if I recall correctly, there is already more than enough food to feed the
planet, if only it where correctly distributed). Work is being more and more
automated, such that even human labour can eventually be made abundant (an
especially vivid example is self-driving cars, which can bring down an entire
profession). But scarcity isn't going anywhere, so we'd better prepare for a
rather long transition.

I see several forms that transition could take. (i) More unemployment, more
economic problems, more people starve and freeze despite the availability of
food and housing. (ii) Reduction of the hours worked per week, while keeping
the salaries up. (iii) Growth of actual wealth ( _Not_ of the GDP). (iv)
artificial scarcity, driven by old corporation and institutions that just
won't die.

I'd like to avoid (i) and (iv), but I'm afraid we already have evidence for
them right now (especially (iv), see copyright and patents). I'd like to have
(ii), but I'm not aware of any reliable metric about it. The last decades
clearly demonstrate (iii), but I'm not sure we have as much as we could have.

Anyway, I'm not satisfied right now: abundance and scarcity clearly don't play
well together. If someone has an idea about how we could make them, that could
be terrific.

------
Samuel_Michon
From the blogpost:

 _"I took the picture because I like taking pictures. I've invested into a lot
of money into camera gear over the past 27 years or so and never made a dime
from it. On the other hand, it has given me a lot of joy and pride. The joy to
take beautiful pictures."_

The author is an amateur photographer, he shares his work and people enjoy it.
That's great.

There are also quite a few developers who contribute to open source projects.
That doesn't mean that they or others can't ever charge for programming work
or software products.

Some photographers license all of their work to the public domain, most
professional photographers don't. I don't feel there's shame in that. People
need to respect and adhere to the license a work is published in. The fact
that you had to download a picture in your browser to view it doesn't mean you
have the right to republish it.

------
ynd
The main thing I take away from this is that he is not a professional
photographer. Of course an amateur can afford to give away photos for free!
However, I'm not sure he even realizes that what he says doesn't make any
sense for a professional photographer trying to earn his livelihood.

------
Jach
> On the other hand, it has given me a lot of joy and pride. The joy to take
> beautiful pictures. The pride of building the reputation of being a decent
> photographer. The pleasure to give away my work and see people smile. The
> satisfaction coming from the fact that my work is useful, seeing it's reused
> by others.

This is a nice sentiment. It reminded me of a quote from Richard Feynman on
his thoughts about the Nobel Prize:

"I've already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing
out. The kick in the discovery. The observation that other people use it.
Those are the real things. The honors are unreal to me." (
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMaBmik4VYg> )

------
orthecreedence
If you want to create art and sell it, great for you. Take all the necessary
steps to protect your work from theft while at the same time raising awareness
for your artistry.

If you want to create art to share with the rest of the world, great for you.
Do so without strings attached and without expecting anything in return.

I see the purpose behind both posts, but they seem to be arguing over
something that doesn't need to be argued over. Some people like to sell their
software, some like to give it away. Neither is right, neither is wrong, the
only context in which the actions can be judged are when they are done so
through the artist...it is up to the artist to decide whether selling
something or giving something away is right or wrong.

------
napoleoncomplex
Unfortunately, pride and people's smiles are not yet valid currency anywhere,
which is most likely the big issue of the author of "This photograph is not
free". This post ends with the opinion that there isn't a lot of money to be
made in photography, since a lot of people have the tools to take/publish
photographs. One could apply that to a number of fields, from logo design and
music to coding. After all, everyone has a computer, a text editor and access
to github.

Yes, these fields might not be as lucrative as they once were, or rather,
they're more competitive, but there is a large step between that and giving
away things for free.

~~~
tikhonj
Actually, I think the programming field is actually _more_ lucrative these
days. The difference is that where the photographer in question expects to be
paid for work he's already done, most people going into programming are either
paid a salary up-front or have a fairly involved business plan (startups and
the like). _App_ developers do seem to be doing relatively poorly, but they
are a minority.

~~~
georgieporgie
There was a time when video game programmers got royalties on the games they
wrote. I'm not entirely sure why this notion of compensation disappeared. The
common argument is along the lines of, "you'll just have people jumping onto
projects with people in them who've got proven success," but I fail to see how
that's any different from life right now.

------
davidcollantes
I strongly recommend you do something, just in case you make it to the front.
Your site is crawling (extremely slow) at the moment. It is just bound to get
worse.

On the topic at hand, I fully agree with you.

------
ako
In our economy value is not based on cost but on supply and demand...

~~~
njharman
In our economy demand is routinely manufactured (commercials, subsidies, gov
contract corruption, etc.) and supply is routinely artificially constrained
(regulated industries, copyright, etc.)

~~~
ako
True, and that is done because demand and supply determine price. So that
basically proofs my point.

------
projectileboy
The underlying attitude that bothers me in these discussions on HN is that
most of us are in the software business, so what it amounts to is "my
intellectual property (software) is super valuable, and your intellectual
property (photos, music, writing) is worthless". Do we really want to live in
a world where people can't make a living from photography or writing or music?

~~~
skeptical
I'd give you a strait answer, but do you realize that the Free Software
Movement is much more widespread than royalty free photography or music?
Furthermore, among the crafts you mentioned, being a programmer is by far the
less profitable one. I'll untwist your twisted question. Honestly, why are you
so worried about 'artists' and not worried about programmers?

------
jjp9999
Well said. I'm a journalist and photographer by trade. Any work I'm
commissioned to do, I charge for. Anything I do for fun I release under
Creative Commons for anyone to use.

We need to make a living, of course, but if you hold onto everything, it will
die with you. Whereas in the public domain, your work becomes immortal.

------
oz
So what?

You _chose_ to make _your_ photograph free. John Mueller _chose_ to charge for
_his_ work. The point is that the creator gets to charge for his work if he
wants. If the price is too high, he doesn't make money. If the price is too
low, he doesn't maximize revenue. But it is his choice to make.

~~~
randomdata
Keep in mind that we, as a society, decided to give them that choice to make.
It was believed to be in the best interests of everyone to allow them those
freedoms.

However, we as a collective, are welcome to change our minds if that freedom
is proving to not be beneficial to society.

This is the problem we are facing today. More and more are changing their
minds on the matter. They are not seeing the social value.

------
Jun8
Thanks for the great photo!

Although I agree with you on most points, I think it is beneficial to have a
middle road between the previous post and this one, e.g. if you had put up
many more of your gorgeous photos and provided a way to make a small donation
for each download (I would gladly would have paid a dollar).

~~~
notatoad
i don't see donation as being a middle road, in my interpretation it is the
opposite of what both of these authors are saying. the point is that when you
create something, it is yours to decide what to do with it, it is up to you to
decide how much it is worth. If you want to give your work away for free, that
is your prerogative. if you want to charge for it, you have that right. it is
not the customer's right to tell you how much your work is worth.

------
svmegatron
I think what both authors in this back and forth are really saying is "this
photograph is mine."

One says "this photograph is mine, no you may not use it too." The other says
"this photograph is mine, yes you may also use it."

So good work, guys! Both pictures are very nice. I'm glad you can do with them
what you want.

------
dools
To be fair I think the photograph posted on peta pixel is an order of
magnitude better than the photo shown here in this post.

------
frankPants
And here is the reason I left photography and became a programmer. It's a
great hobby and a shit profession.

------
route66
The problems specifically concerning works of art were put onto paper 75 years
ago (probably not only then).

While this touches the discussion on HN only on certain aspects it makes for
an interesting read when you have the time. And are not put off by the host
name.

[http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/g...](http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm)

------
ck2
site is slammed, cache

[http://google.com/search?q=cache:http://standblog.org/blog/p...](http://google.com/search?q=cache:http://standblog.org/blog/post/2012/01/11/This-
photograph-is-free)

------
radial77
Charge next time. You'll have money to share if you're so generous.

------
rikelme
Awesome photo ! The tower shadow angle looks odd, though.

~~~
antoko
If you mean in reference to the Sun, then it sure does... but it isn't
actually a shadow, it's a reflection.

~~~
rikelme
My bad.

------
bjornsteffanson
Thanks.

------
noduerme
Okay, here's a better way to say it: A photographer's job is to put this shit
into pictures. If it was easy to put it into pictures, it wouldn't be a job.
Just like if a designer could just sit down and bitch all day about how hard
design is, then he'd be an amateur, not a designer. Just like a philosopher,
or an historian can't just complain about how unfair philosophy or history is.

If this is your art, DO IT, don't do a shitty generic & interchangeable
version of it, and then complain about how hard it is on HN. Period.

------
noduerme
[edit; the guy didn't approve this post and it's not on the site after a few
hours]

Posted: Look - if you're not in the business of doing art at an hourly rate,
then you're either doing art on spec or art for fun. I've got no truck with
the guy who wrote the original article, because I don't think his picture's
worth much. But if he wants to charge for it, he should be allowed to. No one
forced him to go out and spend $6k on expensive tools to take a picture he
could publish on the internet where it's obviously going to be stolen if it's
any good (but won't, because there are too many other people with the same
idea). It's about the same as starting a really original band because you got
a fender amp from guitar center for christmas. Good luck, dude. I love your
dreams and I hope they come true. I'll even go to your show. I might buy your
album. But no, I won't lend you twenty bucks for gas.

Likewise, I'd probably never stumble across your royalty-free image in a
million years, as beautiful as it is, unless it was part of this ceaseless
argument about art prices. Frankly, this is an argument about how art is
positioned, not what constitutes it or what's involved in creating it. And so
everyone in this game's a liar -- buyers and sellers. It's not about layout
cost, and it's not about purchasing power, reach or recognition. It's about
communication; the client pays for art to communicate something, and the
creator makes a piece of art that fits the bill.

And in this case, both you and the guy who wrote that article have resorted to
words to communicate what you're trying to say, over images. That's a massive
fail. You should have said what you were trying to say with imagery, and so
should he. Defending your art with text, explanation, litigious or liberal, is
a sacrilege and proves neither one should be considered Art with an A. Art, if
it exists anymore, is the process of twisting rigid, formulaic and predefined
media to accommodate complex ideas in such a way that they provoke the public,
without resort to words or other fame- or sympathy-seeking strategies.
Basically you guys both suck as photogaphers, because neither of your
photographs made me realize what you, or he, said in the addenda; forget about
paying, why would I use either? Here's a picture of rocks and water; here's a
picture of the eiffel tower. It's the same picture, compositionally and
emotionally. Both of you don't understand photography. Yeah, you get social
points for saying what you did, and obviously I'd rather go out and have a
beer with you than that asshole, but _Show It; Don't Explain It._

------
jenius
I could not be happier about this article, and the fact that the two are
presented next to each other. While I totally agree with @aspir in that both
points of view are valid and deserve to be respected, I think this is the
right attitude, and the one that will really get you ahead.

If photography is your full time job and you are not getting paid for it, sure
you have a reason to complain. You are doing good work, and living on the
streets. That's an injustice. But if you have a job, you're getting paid, and
you are taking photos because you love to do it, I think it's the wrong
attitude to try to get more money out of it. Because when you don't, it will
spread, people will enjoy it, your reputation will go up, and you will end up
making money from it either way.

This is the entire philosophy behind open source, and a big part of what the
companies behind sopa are running up against. Don't try to stop people from
"stealing" your digital stuff, offer it for free. And if you are struggling
financially, or this is your main occupation, just ask them if they would give
you money if they appreciate it. This model has been shown over and over to be
effective on the internet. Humble indie bundle, Louis CK, Radiohead and other
artists releasing albums for free, Lost Type Co-Op... that's just a couple
examples.

So props to the author of this article for getting it and for standing behind
this principle. Do it for the love, not the money. And if you do it for love,
the money will come.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"Because when you don't, it will spread, people will enjoy it, your
> reputation will go up, and you will end up making money from it either
> way."_

This is actually precisely the point the original blog post was arguing
against. Do you know how many times professional creatives _hear_ that
argument?

"You should do this for free, because it'll offer exposure and reputation."

Except, 99% of the time, the people saying this are unable any real exposure,
or the level of exposure they control is considerably less than your position
in the industry. It's such a landslide that the whole argument - while
theoretically valid - just becomes a farce upon itself. Can you imagine a
small-town paper asking to use Anni Leibovitz's work because it'll give her
"exposure"?

If Vogue UK called me today and wanted me to work for them for free I'd jump
on a plane this afternoon. Hell, if a local, well-known fashion boutique
wanted free work, I'd jump too. But, for most professional photogs, the people
approaching them for free work are not handing out a fair deal, and the
"exposure" argument is bogus.

Not to mention, all of the pro photogs I know _do_ hand out considerable
amounts of work for free. They _do_ already build their own exposure and
reputation, so unless you are extraordinarily influential, why would they
offer free work to you?

~~~
jenius
I'd also like to mention, since I apparently got downvoted because of this
response, that it completely misinterpreted my original comment, quite
clearly. When people ask me to do work _for them_ for free, there's no way I'd
agree. Of course that's stupid, and I've heard that plenty of times, and
turned it down every time.

What I was saying, and what I thought I made clear but apparently didn't
enough, was that you should be doing work because you love it. And if you do
work in your free time because you love it, you shouldn't be throwing a hissy
fit when you aren't making immense profits from it.

You should not do custom work for other people for free, I never advocated
this. There is no indication in the original article that someone hired him to
take that photo, and I would say it's fair to assume that he definitely was
not hired to take it. He took it himself, because he wanted to, in his free
time. And now he's complaining that he put it online and people want to use
it. That's where I call bullshit.

~~~
potatolicious
I get your distinction, though I don't see how it's relevant.

Work that one does out of pure interest and passion, in their free time, is
still valuable. I have a family friend who's retired, and intensely interested
in woodwork. He has a workshop you wouldn't believe, and honestly doesn't need
the money - and yet we always pay him for his work, custom or otherwise. And
by this we don't mean simply covering his costs, either.

I'm going to specifically object to your characterization here: _"you
shouldn't be throwing a hissy fit when you aren't making immense profits from
it"_

That's just plain disingenuous, misleading, and putting words in the original
blog author's mouth. He never said anything about charging immense sums to
license his photos. His objection isn't being lowballed, it's that
advertisers, magazines, and other _for-profit_ entities value his work at $0 -
_zero_.

The second thing he complains about is how advertisers only offer "exposure"
in return. This is, of course, a line of bullshit. Either the people trying to
license his photos are ignorant, or they're deliberately trying to take
advantage of him. Being credited in the fine print of an ad, or worse, at the
very bottom of a page in the back of a magazine, far from the actual photo
itself, is worth _zero_ publicity, especially when your photo is being used
stock (as it is, in this case). The magazine/advertiser knows this, the
photographer knows this - simply putting that on the table shows extremely
poor faith, which is probably what triggered the rant in the first place.

> _"He took it himself, because he wanted to, in his free time. And now he's
> complaining that he put it online and people want to use it. That's where I
> call bullshit."_

So, again, if I am reading you correctly, you're saying that anything you
produce in your free time out of personal interest is worth no monetary
compensation, even when being used by commercial entities?

Disregarding the fact that, as a professional freelance photographer,
_everything_ he takes a picture of is a source of income. One does not have to
be specifically commissioned to be on the job.

~~~
jenius
No, I think it all has monetary value, and by open sourcing anything you are
technically losing potential money. This is especially salient for
programmers, as I'm sure you know - nobody is trying to get paid for time
working on linux, although they are still doing work and putting in hours that
they could be billing for.

I'm not trying to devalue anyone's work or property, and if they insist that
it all has value, it all belongs to them, and everyone should have to pay for
it, that's fine. It's an opinion that I do respect, like I said originally.

I just think that a more open attitude is better, personally, which goes back
to the original reason for my comment. Rather than trying to make money off
every tiny piece of work you put out there, why not open source some of your
work. For the good of the community. Sure, you will be losing some profit by
doing this, but more people will be able to enjoy your work, and I think
that's more valuable.

The author of the original article does not think this, and I understand that.
He is not worried about having his work out there, or getting exposure, he
apparently has enough, and he wants to get paid for it. That's fine.

I'm just trying to say that I don't personally agree with that philosophy.

