Bad photos go everywhere
Published:
Some time ago, I made a post on contributing to the Internet public good game. I want to follow up with a couple curious trajectories of photos I took and shared on Pixabay.
Here is a photo I took over ten years ago in Wuppertal, with my Pentax K7 in particular it depicts the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn (Wuppertal’s Suspension Railway):
By using a well known image search engine that does not need any additional advertisement, I found it has been used quite a bit, in several websites. In particular, it has been used by a marketing agency based in Wuppertal, by a company selling defective (euro) pallets for the North Rhine Westphalia area, by a job advertisement company specialized in pharmacists for a specific job offer in Wuppertal, by a German private banking magazine - and in more than one page, by an Italian online magazine in a page devoted to rent or buy an apartment or house in Wuppertal… and probably many more. If I’m not mistaken, none of these site has acknowledged me or Pixabay as a source of the photo.
It is not an isolated case. Here is a photo of Ciclamino taken with my Pentax K3. Ciclamino is one of my cats (by the way, I’m really envious of cats’ ability to relax). Well here it is:
Again, I tracked down several websites using this photo. The website of a Polish company offering services and appliances for cat owners - and in more than one page, the web site of a Japanese shop for pet related objects, different web sites of a similar Dutch shops (here and here)… I think you got the picture, there’s no need to go on, even if I could.
On one hand, I’m glad that someone is implicitly appreciating some photos I took, although I know that there is a Giuseppe Vizzari that is a really good photographer, but it’s not me, despite the homonymy!
The point is that it takes very little to acknowledge the work and contribution of someone else on the Internet: a classic example is a workshop website. I co-organized quite a number of workshops in the past few years, for instance the AIxIA 2020 Discussion Papers workshop in which I credit the author of a photo I use as banner.
Some of the authors of these creative works could be freelance artists making a living out of this kind of activity, so at least a minimum of visibility is really due, especially from businesses that might even make a profit, partly also because of the creative works of these authors. So, besides contributing to the public goods game, be fair, give credit where it is due.