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.
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.
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.