About licenses

Recently I was asked why it is that I keep my flickr photos with a copyright and I realize I had no easy answer for it.

In my professional life as a software developer I am an enthusiast of open source licenses. Not because I think software developers don't need an income and should dedicate their life to altruism, but because I believe that openness, peer review and cooperation are beneficial to the developer, the software community and the world as a whole. I actually believe that most of the exciting stuff happening on the Internet nowadays, like social media, wouldn't have happened without open source licenses. And that some of the worst things, like spam and viruses, have much to thank to Microsoft and their closed source technology.

This is not to say that I don't believe developers shouldn't be paid for their work. Developing good software is not easy, and remuneration is important. It is true that there are other ways to profit with open source licenses, mainly support, but profit is important to keep innovation going.

Still, an inherent problem with digital technologies is its resellability. Because a product is produced once but sold multiple times, we have situations were profits are just too much. A typical example is Microsoft, generating profit well above what is beneficial for the software community. A Microsoft style of company maximizes profit based on inhibiting the competition, creating monopolies and using their patent arsenal to fight against smaller competitors. And that is not healthy for the common good.

So, in software my ideas are clear. Similarly, I have the same approach to music and movies, to the entertainment industry in general. Profit is important because it keeps the industry healthy and innovative, but excessive profit just because digital products are resellable, huge salaries for actors, big margins for music discographies are not. Profits need to be good enough to keep innovation and production alive, but not too much so that it can be used to give too much controlling power to a few. And the Internet has helped a lot to avoid this.

But photography is a difficult one. Nobody is making too much profit out of images. Open licenses don't offer any immediate benefit in innovation, while it means that beginners and small companies that still have to pay their expenses and equipment don't get paid for what they do (who is going to pay for a free to use photograph?). So in photography, I believe keeping the copyright and offering different licenses when there is interest is the best option for me. Nothing stops me to issue a different license to specific individuals or companies on some images if I think it is fit, but I like keeping all rights by default.

In summary, choosing a license is a personal thing to do, and you may find that different industries require different approaches.