Source: search.4shared.com
BBC News Release – Millions of Cool Free Images
The world’s largest photo agency Getty Images Inc. has announced it will be offering about 35 million photos free for use. (For more info: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26463886). As you can see from the banner (above), the gettyimages® gallery on the Internet will be closed from the 12 to 14 March to install their new exhibition.
These photos will be free to bloggers and for use on social networks, but news folks will still need to pay for them.
To begin with a source code will be inserted in the picture frame, which will link the image back to the Getty website. This code can be cut and pasted into any website, similar to the system used by YouTube. It is surmised that Getty Images will probably turn to advertising, in the same way as YouTube.
Some photographers and artists are against the use of their work for free. Others see it as a way to get their name and work out into the world. If is linked to the use of the photo, well, I know I don’t mind the advertising that comes up on YouTube. We are given the choice of watching the ad or clicking through to the video. I admit I will sit through some advertising if it is well made, and I will click away from a badly made boring clip. This, I feel, is another way of improving the industry!
Free Images
Wikipedia
Then there is Wikipedia, you can click through to the background notes on an image and find if the creator minds if their image is used. You will find that there is something called ‘Wikimedia Commons’ . This is “a database of 20 376 566 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.”
If you are interested in borrowing an image from an article in Wikipedia you can click on the image, like this one:
You will be taken to the information page, where you will find the source of the image: English Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cannonball_stack_with_FCC_unit_cell.jpg, and the author: User: Greg. You will also find that the image was rendered and modeled using Cobalt.
Scrolling down you will find this:
If you want to know more about the GNU free documentation license then you can go here.
What’s best?
This still leaves us with the question about what is the best route? Here again I have to reach out and ask my readers. What are your feelings about the ‘free’ use of your artworks or creations? Do you see it as the route to getting paid, or another way of an artist’s work being exploited? Again, I’d be interested in what you have to say. So, let me know.
-Val Cameron/Dreamlight
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