Flipping off Flickr

http://consumerist.com/consumer/flickr/look-at-our-flickr-faves-236463.php

“People are always complimenting us on our photos. The quality of the photo work shown on The Consumerist mainly stems from our preternatural ability to steal images from Flickr.”
— Ben Popken, Editor, consumerist.com

I can’t begin to tell you how shocked at this admission of a corporately-backed blogger. Popken’s online identity is one of irreverence and attitude, which is fitting for his blog. But what is the defense for breaking the law by stealing from individuals? It’s one thing to stand up against “the man,” but stealing from amateur photographers?

Next Post:
Previous Post:
This article was written by

Allen Murabayashi is the co-founder of PhotoShelter.

There are 3 comments for this article
  1. Allen Murabayashi at 11:05 am

    Flickr would certainly be seen as a hero for doing so, but since they don’t control the copyright/creative commons license, they have no financial interest to do so… It’s definitely sad.

  2. David Hobby at 3:37 pm

    There may be more layers to this. Consider the fact that many people on FLickr select a Creative Commons rights setting that allows the use – and even use with modification – of their work. Consumerist (one of my every-single-day reads) is probably working inside the rules WRT the photograher. (Assuming thay are sticking to the CC rights images.) But what is not in question is the terms for use by FLickr, which states that if you use a hosted image from Flickr on an outside site, the image has to link back to the photo’s Flickr page, which Popken does not do.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *