Not to mention its poor form in the webmasters style to have images coming from lots of hosts…

As a photographer I would be furious if someone hot linked my images. The images I put on flickr are lower resolution and the ones people are free to use say so in the CC area.

Shame on Lizzer for not making their searches just search things are that usable by the public under CC from flickr.

Hopefully they will make some changes.

Forgetting the legalities for a second, I agree that it is ethically wrong to use a legal loophole to take advantage of people's confusion. However, there is a fine line between someone who is legitimately confused and merely stupid.

For example, if someone posts an image to Flickr, is it wrong for me to link to it? They might not have known it would be available to the world and wanted it to be kept private. However, if that is the case, they should have set their account to private or the image to friends only. Flickr provides tools and controls to help with that. Just because someone didn't think through every consequence of their action does not mean it is my responsibility to ensure that they never suffer any ill effects from it. If that were the case, then the whole Web breaks down.

Personally, I realize that the Flickr API is insanely confusing so I don't use images from it. That is, unless, it has been clearly marked with a Creative Commons License for such use. The user has to reach in and change that themselves. That is a deliberate action to set that flag.

Do some people not realize what it means to CC license a photo? Sure. Ask Virgin Mobile about that, But when you license an image it is your responsibility to research what you are doing, not the person on the other end who is following the terms of the license.

All in all, I think it is unwise for a company with deep pockets and a big budget to use Flickr. Not only is it unnecessary, but it can lead to court dramas and a damaged reputation. I don't encourage the behavior myself, especially with mainstream stock photos being so cheap.

That being said, there are dangers with iStockPhoto as well, I know many artists who have had their works ripped off and sold there, forcing them to file DMCA notices with the service.

Nothing is 100% safe I am sad to say.

Thank you for the food for thought!

Google Image Search has a lot to answer for.

I did want to mention my other concern. While doing subcontract web design / template work a few months ago the organisation who contracted me almost demanded that I just get free images off Flickr. Whereas I usually would use iStockphoto, or my own stock photography collection that I take myself.

This same demand came very early in the year from a multinational corporation as well.

Now my concern with Flickr. Does someone necessarily ( I don't mean legally, but morally ) understand that they are making these images available to be used? I'm of the opinion that regardless of what they are tagged on Flickr the majority of users are not super clued into tech, law or even common sense. For example, look at the number of family / children photos, or crowd shots of people. or any number of images that would both surprise and outrage someone if they turned up in a Coke ad or a Cigarette commercial or on someone elses desktop or private collection.

My concern is that people, being unaware to a great extent, have made available all these private images without “wanting” them to be displayed, used or ogled over. Ignorance I admit, but this is essentially a non-tech world.

So, I just won't use images that are out there for “free” because I am very aware that the vast majority weren't explicitly put there for people to use. They just chose Flickr to upload images, didn't read the fine print and hey their 3 year old is being viewed by old men in Russia.

I have also been a Google Images victim on numerous occasions, although by deleting my old blogs and starting again it's improved.

Interesting article. I'd like these tools to clearly find ways to ensure that only images “intended for reuse” are shown, as opposed to just legally available.