Flickr apologized for selling Creative Commons photos

Flickr has changed the rules of the Flickr Wall Art service. Launched just a month ago, Flickr Wall Art offers to buy your favorite photos in the form of paintings on canvas. However, in recent weeks, the company has received many negative reviews from the camp of Creative Commons supporters. They expressed that selling pictures with free photos is contrary to the spirit of the community.

Yahoo (the owner of Flickr) earns up to $ 49 for each painting sold, and the author does not receive anything, in full compliance with the terms of the Creative Commons license, which allows the use of photos for commercial purposes (Flickr printed only such photos).

“We hear and understand your concern,” the official Flickr blog says, “and we want to assure that we always act in accordance with the spirit of the community.” Given the various reviews, as a first step, we decided to remove the Creative Commons photo collection from the Flickr Wall Art collection. The decision takes effect immediately. In addition, we will refund the cost of all previously sold images under a Creative Commons license. ”
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Now Flickr is going to work together with the Creative Commons community to develop a suitable work model that would suit everyone.

Flickr Wall Art continues to work, but only with authors who subscribe to the services of the Flickr Marketplace .

This is an interesting example of how a large company went to meet the community of its users, although from a legal point of view the truth is on its side. Authors of photos voluntarily uploaded their works under the Creative Commons license indicating that they can be used for commercial purposes. So the indignation of the community concerns only the moral side of the matter, and the license has not been violated.