>500px says that it reached out to Creative Commons in May, and explained at the time that the reason for the shift was that they weren’t seeing a lot of activity with Creative Commons images, that they still had a number of bugs when it came to searching for such images, and they only had outdated licenses for photographers. In short, there’s not enough activity for 500px to justify continuing it.
What? That doesn't make any sense. Creative Commons is not some kind of million page regulation that requires constant maintenance - it's just an option in a dropdown, or even just a note in the description. There has to be some hidden motivation behind disallowing it, although I can't imagine what that motivation could be.
As discussed previously[0], 500px has been purchased by a major Chinese photography licensing company. They are now migrating their entire catalog to be used for commercial licensing. Any photos which can't be exploited in this way are not welcome on their platform any longer.
I switched back to Flickr when SmugMug bought them and 500px killed their API. The switch was a little harder to accomplish because I was planning to use the API to grab the originals I'd pushed to 500px and since archived, but I'm glad for it now. I guess this was the push I needed to move off the platform altogether.
One of the things I prioritise when picking a platform is answering the question "how easy is it to leave?". Flickr still seems pretty easy to leave if it comes to it.
Getty is an awful company, I refuse to use any of their photos ever, ever again. They have sued multiple businesses that I know of when those businesses put photos _they PAID for_ on their sites and Getty threatened them.
Everyone needs to know about the "legal extortion" that Getty uses with their stock photography.
This business with 500px stinks of a massive takeover of any sources that will compete with Getty. Be warned, they smell like the Microsoft of the 90s.
Props to the team at the Internet Archive led by Jason Scott who archived 3TB of images in 48 hours after the decision was announced with zero notice. [0]
These types of business decisions always mystify me. It's certainly their right to choose what content to host. And, I wouldn't expect them to host content that isn't serving their business. But, making such a change with basically no warning is a pretty clear sign that they will do so again. And, who wants to deal with a company that will make such drastic changes, basically overnight, if you have any other options.
This is always the key. What are you going to switch to? Shutterstock? Getty? They all do crap like this unilaterally and with no regard for what contributors or customers want. It’s a calculated business choice that the people upset by the change won’t materially impact business as usual. Unfortunate but omnipresent.
My guess is that they are not even interested in taking new customers onboard. Before knowing all of this I was interested in purchasing their most expensive plan but I had a question, so I contacted them. I got an automatic reply saying that they were going to reply in 10 days. Well... after 12 days they hadn't replied yet. I contacted them again on Twitter and they just replied it takes 14 days for non customers. But again, they never replied to my questions, not even after 20 days. Not interested to buy anything anymore at this point.
"This license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service."
Therefore use "for commercial and noncommercial purposes" is quite restricted to whatever Unsplash considers "a similar or competing service", a vague definition that could change at any time. The medium.com article you pointed to has a bad pointer[1] when it comes to explaining what this means. Unsplash decides what that means ad hoc so you don't really know what your rights are. If what comes under "photos published on Unsplash" could also be considered a computer program, the above quoted clause would render such a program to be nonfree software (see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html for a definition of free software).
CC0 has no clause comparable to the above quoted clause in the Unsplash license. Also, CC0 is a more thorough abdication of copyright power in copyright regimes where the public domain exists. Unlike the Unsplash license, CC0 uses licensing under a lax, permissive license as a fallback, not a primary mechanism for giving up one's copyright power in the work. This point is not given its due in the medium.com article you pointed us to. Finally, according to https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#CC0 CC0 is a non-copyleft free software license when applied to computer software.
While I don't doubt that all of the reasons they give are strictly true, I wonder if they dropped CC and other public licenses because to host such an image still costs money but they don't get any revenue for it. So if the percentage of images that are holding non-revenue generating licenses is too high, their fixed costs cut too far into their revenue to sustain operations.
One could argue that the might work on being more efficient about their fixed costs but this seems a simpler fix.
Just wondering, why can't you license your photos through whatever service/license they want, and mention in your profile that all pictures are under Creative Commons and copying is authorised (plus mention a personal site with all the pictures in full resolution there)? As the original copyright holder you are allowed to grant this extra license in addition to whatever the platform says.
[+] [-] whatshisface|7 years ago|reply
What? That doesn't make any sense. Creative Commons is not some kind of million page regulation that requires constant maintenance - it's just an option in a dropdown, or even just a note in the description. There has to be some hidden motivation behind disallowing it, although I can't imagine what that motivation could be.
[+] [-] dublinben|7 years ago|reply
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16467347
[+] [-] rbanffy|7 years ago|reply
Last time I checked, their revenue came from members. If they plan to act as middle-men, this move makes sense if they see CC as a no-profit scenario.
[+] [-] sandov|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanrasmussen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ipsum2|7 years ago|reply
If people need alternatives to 500px, Flickr allows CC-licensed photos, and recently got sold to Smugmug. Hopefully they'll keep the licensing intact.
[+] [-] frio|7 years ago|reply
One of the things I prioritise when picking a platform is answering the question "how easy is it to leave?". Flickr still seems pretty easy to leave if it comes to it.
[+] [-] TheChaplain|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nvr219|7 years ago|reply
As someone who is not a photographer, I only follow photographers on Instagram. FWIW.
[+] [-] KenanSulayman|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RobertRoberts|7 years ago|reply
Everyone needs to know about the "legal extortion" that Getty uses with their stock photography.
https://www.extortionletterinfo.com/
This business with 500px stinks of a massive takeover of any sources that will compete with Getty. Be warned, they smell like the Microsoft of the 90s.
[+] [-] AlphaWeaver|7 years ago|reply
[0]: https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/1013464718923718658
[+] [-] dagenix|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mlthoughts2018|7 years ago|reply
This is always the key. What are you going to switch to? Shutterstock? Getty? They all do crap like this unilaterally and with no regard for what contributors or customers want. It’s a calculated business choice that the people upset by the change won’t materially impact business as usual. Unfortunate but omnipresent.
[+] [-] deltateam|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brylie|7 years ago|reply
https://www.pexels.com/
The Internet Archive also allows you to upload photos, and has a slideshow display for multiple photo collections
https://archive.org
[+] [-] emeraldd|7 years ago|reply
https://pixabay.com/
I use both for reference photos when painting.
[+] [-] andreagrandi|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pinjasaur|7 years ago|reply
- Unsplash license: https://unsplash.com/license
- Compare with CC0: https://medium.com/unsplash/the-unsplash-license-f6fb7de5c95...
[+] [-] Digital-Citizen|7 years ago|reply
"This license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service."
Therefore use "for commercial and noncommercial purposes" is quite restricted to whatever Unsplash considers "a similar or competing service", a vague definition that could change at any time. The medium.com article you pointed to has a bad pointer[1] when it comes to explaining what this means. Unsplash decides what that means ad hoc so you don't really know what your rights are. If what comes under "photos published on Unsplash" could also be considered a computer program, the above quoted clause would render such a program to be nonfree software (see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html for a definition of free software).
CC0 has no clause comparable to the above quoted clause in the Unsplash license. Also, CC0 is a more thorough abdication of copyright power in copyright regimes where the public domain exists. Unlike the Unsplash license, CC0 uses licensing under a lax, permissive license as a fallback, not a primary mechanism for giving up one's copyright power in the work. This point is not given its due in the medium.com article you pointed us to. Finally, according to https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#CC0 CC0 is a non-copyleft free software license when applied to computer software.
[1] https://community.unsplash.com/help-section/what-is-the-unsp... didn't work when I tried it.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|7 years ago|reply
One could argue that the might work on being more efficient about their fixed costs but this seems a simpler fix.
[+] [-] Rjevski|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kam|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] est|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sir_Cmpwn|7 years ago|reply
Not much yet but it's being worked on. Contribute?
[+] [-] shmerl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nnash|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TorKlingberg|7 years ago|reply