Dear Editor,
I'm happy to see that my photo of a building by Padamashree Laurie Baker being published in you esteemed new paper, that too in editorial page. Same time it is really saddening to see that I am not attributed for the work I've done. It is really disappointing for an budding photographer like me. Simple attribution from your side would have been a moral boost to people like me.
The picture you have given in this editorial is taken by me here in Trivandrum. you can find this picture here in this link http://flickr.com/photos/kkseema/339827261/ . If you look into the copyright agreement section of the site you can see that I used Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 (Creative Commons) license for my work. I do want people to use my work with their creative work.I dont want to control my work. I request only attribution for work I've done. Unfortunately you did not comply with the licensing conditions I've placed over my work and hence violated my copyright.
Flickr from you have downloaded the picture has an internal mechanism to contact the concerned person..at least you could have done that. Its my friends from goa and other parts called up to tell me that my picture has been published. I have written in my profile to please let me know before using any image. I think you owe me an explanation now.
(so far I haven't received any reply to this mail..)
Posted by Seema K K at 10:53 PM this letter was sent by this talented photographer who distributes her collection of photographs under the creative commons license.the picture Was used by Mr Amrith Lal, in his article on Laurie Baker titled Master Builder which appeared on Editorial Page of the Times Of India e- paper on 21st aprilÂ’2007.however the picture was not attributed to our young friend which is a clear violation of the creative commons license . But with our little efforts, Arun M and Seema, the photographer we managed to extract an apology as well as the assurance that an acknowledgement to Seema will appear on the website. I made sure he understood what creative commons and licensing under the same implies and its importance.
Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary
On Thu, 2007-04-26 at 12:09 +0000, Mishi Choudhary wrote:
this letter was sent by this talented photographer who distributes her collection of photographs under the creative commons license.the picture Was used by Mr Amrith Lal, in his article on Laurie Baker titled Master Builder which appeared on Editorial Page of the Times Of India e- paper on 21st april’2007.however the picture was not attributed to our young friend which is a clear violation of the creative commons license . But with our little efforts, Arun M and Seema, the photographer we managed to extract an apology as well as the assurance that an acknowledgement to Seema will appear on the website. I made sure he understood what creative commons and licensing under the same implies and its importance.
Good work! It is a shame that a newspaper like the Times of India (though I have no regards lost for this paper) should steal material like this.
Best
But with our little efforts, Arun M and Seema, the photographer we managed to extract an apology as well as the assurance that an acknowledgement to Seema will appear on the website. I made sure he understood what creative commons and licensing under the same implies and its importance.
Kudos to all of you for letting the shameless publication know about this. But did you contact the legal department or the responsible people directly? Just asking because such strong messages are probably best sent directly to the legal who have their own ways to deal with such issues in their org to see it doesn't happen again.
- Sandip
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Mishi Choudhary -
Sandip Bhattacharya -
V. Sasi Kumar