This photograph is free

I hope everyone understands, including the authors themselves, that each author in this back-and-forth is correct. The right to give and the right to charge are inherently personal decisions that only the owner of the photo can make.<p>This was the main frustration that I had with the "this photograph is not free" comments, as well as the tone the author of this article takes. It doesn't matter what the commentators claim the various photos are 'worth' -- it's not their right to speculate, and just because you released your material CCL, you don't have the right to feel more privileged than someone who chose to exercise their right to be compensated.

Just a couple of hours time difference and it would be copyrighted[1], and not by him.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_claims" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_cl...</a>

"Most of all, I have realized a long time ago that in a world where everyone has a camera, a lot of free time and fantastic tools to publish stuff, there is not a lot of money to be made anymore by taking pictures."<p>For me that is the best rejoinder to the somewhat whiny tone of the "this photo is not free" post. The author has missed the point that certain types of photos are accurately valued at "free for credit", because it is easy to obtain them at that cost. His real beef should be with this fact, not the fact that people are asking him for photos at market prices.<p>We would all like to be able to charge money for things we would do anyway, but reality does not always oblige us. When my neighbor asked me for my grass clippings to add to his compost pile, I told him sure, but only if I could charge him $1000, based on the cost of my lawnmower, gas, and labor. After all, he will be able to use that compost as fertilizer eventually, and why should he profit from my hard work without compensating me? Sadly, my neighbor did not buy my argument, because grass clippings, like certain photos, are neither rare nor hard to come by.

All of the professional fotogs I know are paid not for photos the <i>have</i> taken, but for photos people would <i>like them</i> to take. The photos that they have taken are just proof that if you hire them to take photos for you, they will be good.<p>In this way, I think this author's point of view is slightly more economically advantageous than the "this photo cost $6500" guy.

Or, "How not to make money selling software: a succinct illustration of cost-based and market-based (specifically, value-based) pricing in just two comment threads."<p>Why can Github charge FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER YEAR for a local install of Github and succeed, impressively so, despite a small army of nerds pointing out how inexpensive it is to run one's own Git server and Gitorious? Why does 37signals have an office with walls made of 37signalsium (really, seen it, it's fuzzy) and trendy furniture despite selling software that the nerdosphere can clearly duplicate? Why does Yammer even consider publishing a $5/user/month price for software that is among every web geek's top-5-most-likely-personal projects?<p>Answer: they don't sell gypsum.<p>Cost based pricing, which works for gypsum sales but not so much for software, suggests that the price of a nice photo should be the price of the gas to get to and from the photo shoot, possibly divided by the number of people interested in buying the photo, plus maybe throw a couple bucks in there and buy yourself something nice, photographer.<p>Value-based pricing says, "how much it cost me to create the photo is <i>irrelevant</i>". YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES, say the nerds. THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I WAS SAYING! But value-based pricing continues: "no, what matters is how much it would cost <i>you</i> to make that photo and how much benefit it brings".<p>How much it would cost <i>you</i> to make that photo: (say) $6000, perhaps divided by the number of different photos you'd take given the same setup (but then also scaled back up to account for the headcount or professional services required to take lots of pictures).<p>How much benefit? It depends. I could take 10,000 words listing out factors in figuring it out. Most importantly: what are the substitutes to this photo and how much do they cost? For some businesses, clip art of the Eiffel Tower suffices to bring 80-90% of the value. For others (like ad-sales print publications), comparables might also be very expensive.<p>Now, the extent to which the YOUR business benefit from my photo exceeds MY cost to produce the photo is MY ADVANTAGE IN PRODUCING PHOTOS (the extent to which your <i>cost</i> exceeds <i>my</i> cost is my "comparative advantage"†††, and if it's a positive number possibly suggests that I'm the one who should be doing the photos in any case, since you have better ways to put your money to use). Having an advantage is a <i>good thing</i>. Among other things, it's a key reason why software startups are lucrative, and why we don't all work on line-of-business software for non-software companies.<p>It's probably true that a photo of a sunset isn't worth $6,000. But, exclusivity aside, the value of the photo also has nothing to do with how much it cost the photographer to take each shot at the margin, and it has nothing to do with the cost to make each marginal sale. What matters is how much it costs the <i>customer</i> to replace that value with a substitute, and in that analysis the $6000 set-up cost, while not determinative, is relevant perspective.<p>The moralism in these threads is an irrelevant sideshow. Situationally, the nerdosphere oscillates between extremes when trying to compute valuations for stuff with intangible-seeming benefits. Today, the nerdosphere apparently thinks either (a) every photo is a precious snowflake or (b) photo costs should be scaled by the current price of hard disk storage. Yesterday, it was whether it's right for Github to charge per repo. Before that, it's whether it's fair to have markets for spec work like 99designs.<p>None of that matters. What matters is, is there a market for what you're selling, and will it clear based on the model you use to price stuff on the market. Clearly there is a market for high-quality photography. Clearly it is not a cost-based market like gypsum, or there would not exist sites selling photos with royalties attached, or photos costing hundreds of dollars --- which clearly those sites do exist. So instead of arguing about how much photos should cost --- because, again, they cost what the market says they cost, not what you think it costs to make them yourself --- think instead about how this discussion applies to your own work product. More than you think it does, is my guess.<p>††† <i>(Actually this isn't all what comparative advantage is; comparative advantage says, if there's a market for widgets and a market for photos and you're better at widgets than photos and I'm better at photos than widgets, then I should do widgets and you should do photos, which is a subtly different idea, but the point stands either way.)</i>

Photographers have a right to demand payment for their photos.<p>Nobody has a license to use a photographer's photos without her permission.<p>Photos are an incredibly cheap commodity (that span the gamut of relative price and quality, like everything else)<p>It is not unreasonable that photo consumers expect low to no cost photographs.<p>I think we're all mostly in agreement here.

The comparative advantage the professional assignment or stock photographer brings to the table isn't just creating a "good enough" photograph, it's about creating the RIGHT photograph for the client.<p>This is why microstock and craigslist haven't completely destroyed the market, since the professional can reliably create the RIGHT photo for the assignment (or in the case of stock, consistently predict and create the exact images the target market needs).<p>But it does exert downward pressure. The photo editor/art buyer is always cost-conscious, and whereas she used to only have the option of professional-quality-work at professional rates, now there is a huge pool of "good enough" photos at vastly lower cost. Buyers of photography, as it turns out, aren't actually that discriminating, so more and more frequently they're opting for the "good enough" photo instead of the RIGHT photo.<p>And this is where the professionals start to get irked. It'd be one thing if the new competition were undercutting them with similar-quality work at lower cost. It's be they're being undercut by work that is often objectively lower in value to the client, and they know the client would be better served.<p>It's actually quite analogous to the issue of outsourcing: a vast new pool of cheaper but lower-quality labor supply becomes available, and many firms move operations overseas. The end-product is crappier but cheaper. Nobody actually cares about quality, and given the choice, they'll go for cheaper and "good enough" over expensive and good.<p>Interestingly, Apple is somehow managing to upend this paradigm by producing really-good quality product at premium-but-not-ridiculous prices through design and manufacturing innovation and exceptional marketing, and is taking back market share from the mid-tiers. I can't think of how the photo industry as a whole can accomplish this, though, since it's B2B rather than B2C, and it's an army of independent professionals and not a unified association. (There's a legal limit on how much the industry can coordinate: the major photographers' trade organization was fined for price-fixing years ago becaused they had published pricing guidelines.)<p>(DISCLAIMER: I worked in the photo industry for years, and still shoot the occasional assignment)

"Mozilla Europe: Founder and president"<p>So ultimately, his money comes from Google advertisements, which are <i>not</i> free. He can afford to do photography as a hobby because he has income from another source, that can be traced back to a scarce good.<p>If all information goods were free, the power would shift to those who actually have something scarce to sell, which would <i>likely</i> mean fewer information goods of some kinds because some people at the margin could no longer afford to produce them if they were no longer able to generate an income by doing so.

I still love the fact that on the website of the original blog poster ( <a href="http://www.johnbmueller.com/index2.php?v=v1" rel="nofollow">http://www.johnbmueller.com/index2.php?v=v1</a> ) that until yesterday he was illegally streaming music by a band (Frau Frau) along with his photo slideshow. I wonder how much he was paying the artists/bands? I guess nothing as since I notified him and the bands the music has strangely disappeared... I wonder how much he owes them? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frou_Frou_(band)" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frou_Frou_(band)</a>

As somebody who pretends to make art, I think that both sides of this argument are correct and valid. If you make art, and you want to charge whatever you want for it, more power to you and good luck. If you make art and give it away, awesome!<p>If you just make it and keep it to yourself, just for your own personal fulfillment, sweet!<p>Or all put another way, if you like somebody else's art, but object to their charging something for it, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from learning the craft and producing it yourself...and you might get even more out of it then.

Yet another example of the tension between scarcity and abundance.<p>Our economy is based on scarcity. Which means that anything abundant tend to see its price driven down to zero. Making a living by selling such goods <i>as if they were scarce</i> is increasingly difficult. Donations seems to work somewhat, though.<p>If everything (including food and housing) were abundant, we wouldn't even need money, and making a living out of music, photography, or software wouldn't even be discussed of. But we don't live in that world…<p>…Yet. The way things are evolving, more and more goods have the potential to be effectively abundant. Especially those who have bounded demand, like food (if I recall correctly, there is already more than enough food to feed the planet, if only it where correctly distributed). Work is being more and more automated, such that even human labour can eventually be made abundant (an especially vivid example is self-driving cars, which can bring down an entire profession). But scarcity isn't going anywhere, so we'd better prepare for a rather long transition.<p>I see several forms that transition could take. (i) More unemployment, more economic problems, more people starve and freeze despite the availability of food and housing. (ii) Reduction of the hours worked per week, while keeping the salaries up. (iii) Growth of actual wealth (<i>Not</i> of the GDP). (iv) artificial scarcity, driven by old corporation and institutions that just won't die.<p>I'd like to avoid (i) and (iv), but I'm afraid we already have evidence for them right now (especially (iv), see copyright and patents). I'd like to have (ii), but I'm not aware of any reliable metric about it. The last decades clearly demonstrate (iii), but I'm not sure we have as much as we could have.<p>Anyway, I'm not satisfied right now: abundance and scarcity clearly don't play well together. If someone has an idea about how we could make them, that could be terrific.

From the blogpost:<p><i>"I took the picture because I like taking pictures. I've invested into a lot of money into camera gear over the past 27 years or so and never made a dime from it. On the other hand, it has given me a lot of joy and pride. The joy to take beautiful pictures."</i><p>The author is an amateur photographer, he shares his work and people enjoy it. That's great.<p>There are also quite a few developers who contribute to open source projects. That doesn't mean that they or others can't ever charge for programming work or software products.<p>Some photographers license all of their work to the public domain, most professional photographers don't. I don't feel there's shame in that. People need to respect and adhere to the license a work is published in. The fact that you had to download a picture in your browser to view it doesn't mean you have the right to republish it.

The main thing I take away from this is that he is not a professional photographer. Of course an amateur can afford to give away photos for free! However, I'm not sure he even realizes that what he says doesn't make any sense for a professional photographer trying to earn his livelihood.

&#62; On the other hand, it has given me a lot of joy and pride. The joy to take beautiful pictures. The pride of building the reputation of being a decent photographer. The pleasure to give away my work and see people smile. The satisfaction coming from the fact that my work is useful, seeing it's reused by others.<p>This is a nice sentiment. It reminded me of a quote from Richard Feynman on his thoughts about the Nobel Prize:<p>"I've already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out. The kick in the discovery. The observation that other people use it. Those are the real things. The honors are unreal to me." ( <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMaBmik4VYg" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMaBmik4VYg</a> )

If you want to create art and sell it, great for you. Take all the necessary steps to protect your work from theft while at the same time raising awareness for your artistry.<p>If you want to create art to share with the rest of the world, great for you. Do so without strings attached and without expecting anything in return.<p>I see the purpose behind both posts, but they seem to be arguing over something that doesn't need to be argued over. Some people like to sell their software, some like to give it away. Neither is right, neither is wrong, the only context in which the actions can be judged are when they are done so through the artist...it is up to the artist to decide whether selling something or giving something away is right or wrong.

Unfortunately, pride and people's smiles are not yet valid currency anywhere, which is most likely the big issue of the author of "This photograph is not free". This post ends with the opinion that there isn't a lot of money to be made in photography, since a lot of people have the tools to take/publish photographs. One could apply that to a number of fields, from logo design and music to coding. After all, everyone has a computer, a text editor and access to github.<p>Yes, these fields might not be as lucrative as they once were, or rather, they're more competitive, but there is a large step between that and giving away things for free.

I strongly recommend you do something, just in case you make it to the front. Your site is crawling (extremely slow) at the moment. It is just bound to get worse.<p>On the topic at hand, I fully agree with you.

In our economy value is not based on cost but on supply and demand...

The underlying attitude that bothers me in these discussions on HN is that most of us are in the software business, so what it amounts to is "my intellectual property (software) is super valuable, and your intellectual property (photos, music, writing) is worthless". Do we really want to live in a world where people can't make a living from photography or writing or music?

Well said. I'm a journalist and photographer by trade. Any work I'm commissioned to do, I charge for. Anything I do for fun I release under Creative Commons for anyone to use.<p>We need to make a living, of course, but if you hold onto everything, it will die with you. Whereas in the public domain, your work becomes immortal.

So what?<p>You <i>chose</i> to make <i>your</i> photograph free. John Mueller <i>chose</i> to charge for <i>his</i> work. The point is that the creator gets to charge for his work if he wants. If the price is too high, he doesn't make money. If the price is too low, he doesn't maximize revenue. But it is his choice to make.

Thanks for the great photo!<p>Although I agree with you on most points, I think it is beneficial to have a middle road between the previous post and this one, e.g. if you had put up many more of your gorgeous photos and provided a way to make a small donation for each download (I would gladly would have paid a dollar).

I think what both authors in this back and forth are really saying is "this photograph is mine."<p>One says "this photograph is mine, no you may not use it too." The other says "this photograph is mine, yes you may also use it."<p>So good work, guys! Both pictures are very nice. I'm glad you can do with them what you want.

To be fair I think the photograph posted on peta pixel is an order of magnitude better than the photo shown here in this post.

And here is the reason I left photography and became a programmer. It's a great hobby and a shit profession.

The problems specifically concerning works of art were put onto paper 75 years ago (probably not only then).<p>While this touches the discussion on HN only on certain aspects it makes for an interesting read when you have the time. And are not put off by the host name.<p><a href="http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/g...</a>

site is slammed, cache<p><a href="http://google.com/search?q=cache:http://standblog.org/blog/post/2012/01/11/This-photograph-is-free" rel="nofollow">http://google.com/search?q=cache:http://standblog.org/blog/p...</a>

Charge next time. You'll have money to share if you're so generous.

Awesome photo ! The tower shadow angle looks odd, though.

Thanks.

Okay, here's a better way to say it: A photographer's job is to put this shit into pictures. If it was easy to put it into pictures, it wouldn't be a job. Just like if a designer could just sit down and bitch all day about how hard design is, then he'd be an amateur, not a designer. Just like a philosopher, or an historian can't just complain about how unfair philosophy or history is.<p>If this is your art, DO IT, don't do a shitty generic &#38; interchangeable version of it, and then complain about how hard it is on HN. Period.

[edit; the guy didn't approve this post and it's not on the site after a few hours]<p>Posted: Look - if you're not in the business of doing art at an hourly rate, then you're either doing art on spec or art for fun. I've got no truck with the guy who wrote the original article, because I don't think his picture's worth much. But if he wants to charge for it, he should be allowed to. No one forced him to go out and spend $6k on expensive tools to take a picture he could publish on the internet where it's obviously going to be stolen if it's any good (but won't, because there are too many other people with the same idea). It's about the same as starting a really original band because you got a fender amp from guitar center for christmas. Good luck, dude. I love your dreams and I hope they come true. I'll even go to your show. I might buy your album. But no, I won't lend you twenty bucks for gas.<p>Likewise, I'd probably never stumble across your royalty-free image in a million years, as beautiful as it is, unless it was part of this ceaseless argument about art prices. Frankly, this is an argument about how art is positioned, not what constitutes it or what's involved in creating it. And so everyone in this game's a liar -- buyers and sellers. It's not about layout cost, and it's not about purchasing power, reach or recognition. It's about communication; the client pays for art to communicate something, and the creator makes a piece of art that fits the bill.<p>And in this case, both you and the guy who wrote that article have resorted to words to communicate what you're trying to say, over images. That's a massive fail. You should have said what you were trying to say with imagery, and so should he. Defending your art with text, explanation, litigious or liberal, is a sacrilege and proves neither one should be considered Art with an A. Art, if it exists anymore, is the process of twisting rigid, formulaic and predefined media to accommodate complex ideas in such a way that they provoke the public, without resort to words or other fame- or sympathy-seeking strategies. Basically you guys both suck as photogaphers, because neither of your photographs made me realize what you, or he, said in the addenda; forget about paying, why would I use either? Here's a picture of rocks and water; here's a picture of the eiffel tower. It's the same picture, compositionally and emotionally. Both of you don't understand photography. Yeah, you get social points for saying what you did, and obviously I'd rather go out and have a beer with you than that asshole, but <i>Show It; Don't Explain It.</i>

I could not be happier about this article, and the fact that the two are presented next to each other. While I totally agree with @aspir in that both points of view are valid and deserve to be respected, I think this is the right attitude, and the one that will really get you ahead.<p>If photography is your full time job and you are not getting paid for it, sure you have a reason to complain. You are doing good work, and living on the streets. That's an injustice. But if you have a job, you're getting paid, and you are taking photos because you love to do it, I think it's the wrong attitude to try to get more money out of it. Because when you don't, it will spread, people will enjoy it, your reputation will go up, and you will end up making money from it either way.<p>This is the entire philosophy behind open source, and a big part of what the companies behind sopa are running up against. Don't try to stop people from "stealing" your digital stuff, offer it for free. And if you are struggling financially, or this is your main occupation, just ask them if they would give you money if they appreciate it. This model has been shown over and over to be effective on the internet. Humble indie bundle, Louis CK, Radiohead and other artists releasing albums for free, Lost Type Co-Op... that's just a couple examples.<p>So props to the author of this article for getting it and for standing behind this principle. Do it for the love, not the money. And if you do it for love, the money will come.