

The Ins and Outs of the Yahoo Flickr Creative Commons 100M Dataset - sytelus
http://code.flickr.net/2014/10/15/the-ins-and-outs-of-the-yahoo-flickr-100-million-creative-commons-dataset/

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baldfat
I still find that Flickr's Creative Commons is a handy license for work in
Education when I need a picture for work. I kind of wish that more emphasis
was placed on Public Domain pictures.

~~~
ghaff
One of the problems with the Creative Commons photos is that the considerable
majority picks NC by default. That may well work for education but, depending
upon whose opinion you're listening to, it may prohibit pretty much every
other use that isn't purely personal. See, e.g., this case from Germany:
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140326/11405526695/germa...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140326/11405526695/german-
court-says-creative-commons-non-commercial-licenses-must-be-purely-personal-
use.shtml)

I do use Flickr CC licenses in some presentations that are educational rather
than product pitches, but I realize this use is probably in a gray area.

~~~
tjr
As a hobbyist photographer on Flickr, I use non-commercial CC mainly to avoid
any pictures of people being used for marketing without the person's consent,
and to avoid any pictures being used to advertise something that I wouldn't
want to help support.

I'd happily consider requests from anyone asking to use a picture under a
different license than the default non-commercial CC that I picked, but I do
realize it's often easier to just find a different picture under the license
you want.

~~~
ghaff
>to avoid any pictures of people being used for marketing without the person's
consent

Just FYI, someone can't safely do that anyway. That's commercial use (with a
different meaning of commercial than we're talking here) and typically
requires a model release form for any identifiable subject. That's why stock
sites require the submittal of model releases.

>to avoid any pictures being used to advertise something that I wouldn't want
to help support.

That's obviously another matter but that's why NC isn't really a free license
because it restricts use in a way that OSI software licenses don't. And it
does it in a very unclear way. A lot of folks would argue that a non-profit
organization could use an NC photo for advertising.

Speaking for myself, it's extremely rare that I would go to the trouble of
asking permission to use a photo with a license that doesn't match my intended
use; I'll just use something else.

~~~
tjr
_That 's commercial use (with a different meaning of commercial than we're
talking here)_

In what way is it different? While I'm sure individual opinions may vary, I
get the impression that there are ample people both creating and using
Creative Commons-licensed materials that see advertising use as falling under
"commercial" use, as defined by Creative Commons:

[http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/defining-
noncommercial/De...](http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/defining-
noncommercial/Defining_Noncommercial_fullreport.pdf)

So as you said, a model release would be required for advertising use;
strictly speaking, a model release would be required on top of a license to
use the photo itself (stock photos ostensibly are sold with both the photo
license and the model release bundled together as one), but it seems most
clear-cut to me to just disallow commercial usage entirely to steer clear of
the issue, lest someone erroneously conclude that a commercial license implies
no need for an additional model release.

 _A lot of folks would argue that a non-profit organization could use an NC
photo for advertising._

Maybe so.

 _I 'll just use something else._

Agreed.

~~~
ghaff
There's commercial in the sense of "used to help make me money" which is how
C/NC are normally distinguished.

And there is commercial (e.g. advertising, marketing brochures, etc.) as
opposed to editorial use. Which typically requires a model release in addition
to an appropriate license for the photo. Frankly, it's really up to the user
of the photo to determine that they've cleared appropriate rights.

The New York Times (a for-profit corporation, well trying to be anyway) can
print any news photo without a model release because that's editorial.
However, if they use a CC-NC photo, they would presumably be violating the
terms of that license.

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minimaxir
The chart provided of the most frequent user-added tags literally makes my
head hurt.

I fixed it: [http://i.imgur.com/l5m8teS.png](http://i.imgur.com/l5m8teS.png)

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discardorama
Of the Apple devices, iPhone 4 and 4s dominate. This tells me that either the
data is old; or more recent device users (5, 5s, 6) don't upload to Flickr as
much any more.

~~~
pronoiac
The iPhone 4 is from 2010, the 4s from 2011, and Instagram came out in late
2010. These may be connected.

Gizmodo called it pretty much abandoned in 2012:
[http://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-
lost-...](http://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-the-
internet) though that was before Marisa Mayer took over as Yahoo CEO.

~~~
ghaff
The Flickr is dead meme is overdone. At least according to this data
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/franckmichel/6855169886/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/franckmichel/6855169886/)
is hasn't really been growing but it still has lots of photos uploaded.

I haven't studied the types of cameras used for flickr photos recently but I
suspect it tends to skew toward higher-end cameras while phone photos are more
likely to end up elsewhere--of course, there are a lot of phone photos.

~~~
pronoiac
I just checked that Flickr graph, and the ceiling is 70 million photos per
month. I just checked, and Instagram boasts 70 million photos per _day._ [1]
So while Flickr may be growing in, say, photos per month, its share overall,
year-over-year is ... not good.

[1] [http://instagram.com/press/](http://instagram.com/press/)

~~~
ghaff
The uses are very different. Note that Flickr does charge for Pro accounts--
don't know what share of photos that covers on the site.

That said, it's fair to say that Instagram (and Facebook and some others) have
captured the casual photography sharing market and Flickr could probably have
done better there. While it's true that sites like Smugmug cater even more
toward serious use, I'm sure Flickr/Yahoo would have liked to have had a
broader and more mainstream base.

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jason_slack
I wish there was a better way to download the dataset than with an Amazon
account.

