I was researching something for a future column today and I went looking for a RFP regarding Kinsmen Park. As I opened the PDF, I was impressed with the photo that made up the front cover of it.
The reason I was impressed with the photograph is that it has been a long time favorite photo…. ever since I took it back in 2003.
The photo is licenced under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons License. The last time I checked, a RFP for the City of Saskatoon is a commercial endeavour and there was no attribution. Some of the other photos used in the RFP were flat out copyrighted.
Now if I had been asked, I would have given the City permission. I get between 30 and 50 requests to use my photos a year from everyone from the British Columbia government, a band in Japan, the Department of National Defense, to the Government of Canada’s Tourism Commission and I say yes to all of them. Today I don’t feel so charitable, especially when I when I see that the RFP was actually sponsored and paid for by PotashCorp and apparently subsidized by a stolen image of mine.
Stick it to them and make them either pay you or something… that’s not fair and nobody likes it when their stuff is stolen and used without permission. The worst is when people use shutterstock/istockphoto images, and the watermark is still showing, in their printed product. Clearly didn’t buy the photo!!
I doubt I will demand payment. I am just disgusted with how they used the image without permission. I expected the City to have rules about this and it stinks when they aren’t followed.
Did you contact the city? I’m surprised by this.
FWIW, some of us fight the good fight. Any time I see a watermarked photo, I call them on it and report it if it stays up.
Add in some extra for ‘pain and suffering’. Their crop does nothing for your photograph!
That’s pretty bush-league right there. (Funny that the font they chose is Cooper Black, though…)
[...] It’s happened before and I was assured it would never happen again. Well it did. I was initially quite angry but more than anything it shows that copyright and the Creative Commons are not well understood by city employees. My photos can be used if I am given credit (I was told I was in the City of Saskatoon’s PowerPoint) but in the print/PDF version I was not. Also, it is not for commercial use. I was talking with city councillor today who wondered if because the city used it, if it was a bit of confusion. I replied, “You call yourselves a corporation” but I see his point and I think that may be the biggest problem. During my discussion on Twitter about it, I was told that some of my photos have been used in other publications, again without permission, attribution and by the corporation. [...]