I often talk about things I like and things that I’ve discovered that totally rock but now I’m just going to take a moment to reflect on some of my “Net Peeves”.

I’m sure we all have them… that website you visit all the time that’s just horrendous to navigate around, has massive background images, autoplaying music and charming web 1.0 rotating gifs. Well, maybe that’s not even your “Net Peeve” maybe you can’t stand sidebars and the site of them makes you shriek and curl into a ball. Who knows. My site is no prize, I know I sometimes have some sloppy CSS and I’m in desperate need of a new banner and theme change… and I won’t even touch on content… but I digress.

Net Peeve #001 Usage of Flickr Photos

One thing I am a huge supporter of is Creative Commons licensing. If I am browsing Flickr for a photo to use in a blog post I make sure to do an “advanced search” and only choose those with the appropriate license. In this case since I am not the owner and I will be redistributing the photo in the form of the blog post I am looking for a “Attribution”, “Non-Commercial”, “No Derivative Works” or “Share Alike” license. [see: Flickr, Creative Commons]

I have used “All Right Reserved” images before, but that was after contacting the owner and getting full permission. I also give permission to some of my friends to use my photos as I know we link to each other at least 5 times a week anyway. Usually all you have to do is “attribute” the images properly by linking as directed or requested, or back to the original photo stating the photographer’s name.

Same thing goes the other way as well, if you have a Flickr account and want people to find and use your photos, make sure to select the appropriate license for your images.

If you are a blogger that wants to use a CC licensed photo you found on Flickr, you need to attribute it back to the source. A big “Net Peeve” of mine is when people Right Click/Save As other people’s Flickr images. You can find some neat Wordpress plugins that will seek out Flickr photos and drop them into your posts appropriately but other than that, here are a few simple steps to using a shareable photo from Flickr in a blog post:

1) Find the photo you like and decide what size you need it in for your post, if you need it larger or smaller than the standard view, click on “All Sizes” and continue this process with Small, Medium, Large or Original.

2) Right click on the image and select “Copy Image Location”. You’ll then have something like this:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1322/1433411993_1f75974a16.jpg?v=0

3) Go into your blog post and paste what you just copied into an image tag:

4) Go back to the original photo and copy the url in the address bar to get the link for the photo. Link the photo tag or photo by typing/pasting the HTML link code or by using the little link button in your editor and pasting it in.

This allows for the image to stay on Flickr while whole attribution is now given to the source. Of course if people didn’t want their photos downloaded off Flickr they can adjust their privacy settings but doing so also removes the ability to right click and view the image location. If it does get to that point then that’s probably not a photo they want shared and you should look for a new one for your blog post.

All in all, I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to link a photo to the source. First, you get to use a really rad shot with full permission, and second it’s nice to leave a comment on the original photo. I usually say “Hi, I used this photo in a blog post and linked back here with credit,” plus a big thanks and a link to the blog post. That even gives you more traffic coming from the photo, and lots of people love to see their works on display. Shiny happy sharing people all around.

Of note: Darren’s post about Flickr and CC licensing that has quite the discussion going in the comments.

I found an incoming link on my Wordpress dashboard this evening from Vancouvergo.com. Now I’ve seen these types of sites before, sometimes the just look for syndicated blog posts or news articles about a certain topic, in this case “Vancouver”, and conglomerate that information onto one big website or source.

That’s all fine and dandy because most sites like that use the original post and link directly to the original entry on the author’s site.

However, in the case of Vancouvergo.com they have completely copied/pasted the html from my blog post and created their very own hyperlink for the article. The only link back to my site was actually something I linked to in the body of my posts - hence my Wordpress notification. Other than that, there is not one hyperlink to my actual story, only plain text at the very end saying: “From
http://www.miss604.com/2007/07/vancouver-summer-events-guide-pt-3.html” (no link).

There is no comments section or contact form on the site so if you or someone you know is an editor of Vancouvergo.com I would simply ask that you do not copy and paste my story and create your own hyperlink for my article, soaking up my google juice and reproducing my original content without permission. I’m happy to be included as a source for Vancouver info and feel free to syndicate my posts on your site as long as you fully link back to the source with credit. At the very least state “By Rebecca Bollwitt” or I’ll even settle for “By Miss604″ at the top of the article. [view this site's Creative Commons license].

I’m growing tired of seeing inbound links to my blog from news aggregators. If I felt these aggregators were around to provide a relatively cohesive website for a particular topic, I might support them. But most of the ones that link to me are simply trying to make a profit on advertising, and that bothers me that other people are using my work to try and make money. To counter that, I have explicitly stated on the bottom of my blog (in the footer) that the works on this website are protected under a CC non-commercial license. I don’t mind other people cutting pieces out of my articles to support intellectual blog entries of their own, even if they have adsense (because I have some here on my buried pages), but I’m going to deliberately clamp down on aggregators, or people who I feel are lifting blog entries of mine. [Duane Storey]

If you are a blogger, photo sharer or user of the web, please take some time to educate yourself about Creative Commons licensing and attribution on the CC site wiki or read Duane’s post regarding photos.