Using Flickr Photographs For Profit: Exploitation or Exposure?

StockPhotoTalk seems to feel Flickr users are being exploited by companies using Flickr photographs (freely submitted) without payment.

MAX, the leading monthly german lifestyle magazine from the MILCHSTRASSE Publishing Group (acquired by the mighty Hubert Burda Media Group in late 2004) and a “Visual Leader” in photography since 15 years, started four month ago to publish multi-paged features of the best photos found on Flickr in the Flickr-Portfolio, usually around 6 pages. All this without paying a dime to the Flickr photographers (The Group Rules of MAX explain: “What’ s the “crop” of my work? Fame – in one word! You will get no money, sorry”).

I am firmly against anyone using Flickr photographs without permission, even with the most liberal license (credit should at least be given), but I don’t actually think (if I understand correctly) this publication is doing anything wrong. These photographers are submitting to the magazines pool. How is it any different from the San Francisco newspaper that is doing the same thing? The photographer freely provides it, the publication uses it and the photograph is seen by a wider audience than it ever would.

In my opinion if someone submits to a public pool in order to be shown to a wider audience then there isn’t a great jump for that audience to see it in print.

This argument is raging elsewhere, it is a “user generated content” argument of when does your user content become unpaid work. Lots of companies from Flickr to Google make money off of your intellectual property, nobody minds when you get a proportionate return for your hard work.