Kevin Whitworth / Jacurutu

A couple of days ago, I received the following via Flickrmail:

Now, I must admit to being quite excited. When I first read it. But then I thought about it a bit, and decided to file it for further reference. (Plus until I got somewhere with a decent Internet connection.) I tend to be sceptical about things like this (and offers of large sums of money to help move someone's husband's/dad's/etc ill-gotten life savings out of some African country), so I wanted to do a bit more digging.

It turns out that it's legitimate. But I still have this nagging feeling that Schmap are asking me to give them my photographs so that they can make money. OK, they're not selling my photographs, and they're not selling their product to their customers, but their business model is supported by advertising revenue. So, at the end of they day, they want my product (a photograph) to improve their product (a city guide) in order to make money. And they don't want to pay me for it. I know they're offering a photo credit and a link to the original on Flickr, but is that of any real value to me?

There is much discussion, on Flickr and elsewhere, about how amateur photographers (and sites like Flickr) are killing the photography business, making it difficult for professionals to make a living when amateurs will give away their photos (or photography services) for nothing (or a link). As a keen amateur with wanabee-professional aspirations, I have mixed feelings on this. I've done a couple of jobs for friends for little or no financial profit, no doubt depriving a real pro from some income. However, I've gained experience and (hopefully) references, and they've had to take a risk that I'm actually capable delivering what they've asked me for. Clearly this isn't a long-term sustainable business model, so the amount of work I'm taking away from pro photographers is limited, and hopefully it helps me get to the point where I can start to earn a real income from photography.

Anyway, I digress. Having searched around on Flickr and elsewhere, there quite a few articles about Schmap asking Flickr users for a free license to use their photographs (eg Editorial Photographers UK, telescreen.org, Joe Gratz). Having read a few of these, and the discussions that they've provoked, I was still initially undecided.

However, on further reflection (and a couple of cups of coffee), that the excitement of being "discovered" was clouding my judgement. It's my work, if someone wants to make money from it, I want more than a photo credit and a link to a photo on Flickr. Schmap are welcome to license it from under commercial terms, and until they're prepared to do so, they can't use it.

Clearly plenty of Flickrites think otherwise. I'm not going to have a rant about how they're eroding the commercial photography market - plenty of other people have done that (and no doubt many more will do so in the future - perhaps even those who've crossed over to the pro side!). I'm not even going to have a rant about misleading people that Schmap is non-commercial (Joe Gratz did that).

What I am going to do is have a rant that I've got much better photos of London, and of the Royal Observatory, in my Flickr stream (although maybe I need to learn to separate myself from my photographs). Actually, I'm not going to have a rant about that either (mostly because I'm running late - I'm off for a curry and need to wrap this up), but I will express some level of mild annoyance about it.

Grrr...