People Show Failing Respect For Creatives

Recently I came across a story through Digg about Creative Commons and photographers.
http://rising.blackstar.com/why-photographers-hate-creative-commons.html

The posts in the comment thread were somewhat brutal and many people seemed to be adamant that photography and creativity no longer had value because it was so commonly available for free. One person even insinuated that if people expected to be paid for creativity then they should be paid for bodily functions... nice.

This was my response that immediately started getting buried by negative ratings one would assume because I dare to want something in-between "only pros get paid" and "all information should be free".

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I am not sure that CC is really working to foster and protect creativity. Actually, I have not seen much work done as it relates to the web to promote a photographers ability to earn fair compensation for what they do. Honestly, I think we have a deeper problem here, as reflected in these comments. Creativity is losing value in the minds of people.

The line between pro and amateur is the real outdated concept here... We had a great opportunity to bring in hordes of new contributers and content generators and allow them to be good at what they do while earning a modest income from...*shock* art! There is no reason people shouldn't make some portion of their income from creativity even if it never becomes their main source of income. Saying a work has no value depending on who the creator is and what title they have is ridiculous.

Talented people should be informed that their work has value. Often I think they just assume it doesn't and others take advantage of that. Maybe thats the real issue. Even if you take one great image in your whole life... its still a great image.

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I understand why people would want to share and I certainly don't mean to imply that they are wrong to do so, But I think there are also a lot of talented non-pro people that are not being given an opportunity or encouragement to use their skill to help pay their bills because the current vibe seems to be "set it free or you are being antisocial"

We are spending lots of effort on sharing content and not enough effort on creating a system/attitude that supports creatives throughout the range of skill, equipment, and creativity. All I am wishing for is something in between "no value" and traditional "over priced pro". A range of "creative middle class artist" supported by licensing system that allows much of the freedom of CC but also encourages modest compensation when it makes sense. I have spent quite a bit of time at Creative Commons trying to figure out if it would fit that goal and honestly I just haven't found a way that I think it could. Someone here mentioned dual licensing and I need to put some thought into that before closing the book on CC though.

If we are going to tear down the status quo, maybe we should consider finding ways to include the talented people that have traditionally been left out. Do I want to continue to pay Getty $500 for a rights managed image? Hell no! But I would be glad to pay $10-$50 to a struggling person who is studying photography at night and managed to get a great shot that was similar to the $500 one.

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This person had some good points... but still he was sort of an "all or nothing" advocate... summed up by this statement. "You seem to be suggesting that 'creative output' deserves some form of income. It does. It deserves the income that their customers are willing to pay for it. No more, no less. "

Yes, and I am trying to encourage people to be honest with themselves about the value of that output... lets say someone makes a decent living and also has a popular blog on the side that promotes them and therefore indirectly increases their income. One day you see an image on flicker that you think would be perfect to communicate the "feel" of a post. Instead of just taking it because the person has put it up under a CC license and you are in the "gray area" perhaps they should offer to pay a small fee for it. I would like to change peoples minds in a broad way about what that value for creativity IS. (crazy I know) We don't seem to be talking about a scale of worth... either its free, nearly free, or it is prohibitively expensive. There could be a huge range of value and affordability.

Content creators and content users could ultimately benefit from a system that made it simple and convenient to freely share, or pay on a sliding scale depending on the quality and the usage. I see this as one of the largest wasted online opportunities of the last decade. Call it "having a micro job" or "The Creative Middle Class" but the trading and exchange of digital content for (very small) payments never evolved the way I had hoped it would and it seems to me that just people that use the content or want to make money distributing / organizing of that content are getting most of the advantage, while people that are good at making images, music, etc... have not. You mentioned that the worth of "creative output" is set by the market and competition – I would say that the worth is set by the market and competition and modified by the tools available to deliver and license it. Its easy to leave a tip for a waitperson because the system and the social standard is in place. It is a huge pain to try to pay a small fair fee to a web based creative.

I am not advocating things returning to the way they were... I was just hoping for something different and perhaps better than what has happened.


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I don't know why I still fight it... Its not new, people have always had a low opinion of "artists". The idea that you should be able to make a living doing art is still foreign and confusing to most people. Its just that now the web has uncovered so many people with artistic leanings and since we all are so convinced of our own worthlessness by all the lack of respect... we are just giving away all we create even if it does have modest commercial worth. Nothings going to stop the landslide... Soon the dream of the web allowing for an "creative middle class" will be fully crushed and only the very rich or people willing to live in poverty or off the kindness of others will have the time to develop artistic skill... much like its always been.