Case Studies/Monkeyc.net
The Creative Commons license is a perfect example of the sort of copyright changes the modern world needs to come to grips with in the digital age, information should be free to all. — John Harvey, ‘monkeyc.net’, Flickr photographer
Overview
John Harvey, aka ‘monkeyc.net’, is a former photojournalist who now uses Flickr to display his amateur photography. John is an active member of the Flickr community, having first uploaded a photo on 26 September 2004 and now sporting a collection of close to 1,000 images, and encourages others to engage likewise. Several of John’s photographs have been featured on Flickr’s ‘Explore’ page, as an indication of their popularity in the Flickr community. John is a member of over 180 groups within Flickr, ranging from ‘Australian Images’ to ‘Mundo Uno’.
John describes himself, in his Flickr profile page, as follows:
- ‘Former photojournalist who fled the bright lights and dingy darkrooms for fame, fortune and a living wage back in the mists of time, now a sometime amateur photographer who dreams of the days when he understood esoteric concepts such as depth of field and aperture as an escape from a life spent dealing with the problems of suffering users and staff in the world of corporate Information Technology.’
The website ‘monkeyc.net: a.life.in.motion’ is John’s blog, and also contains a gallery of pictures. The blog is not Creative Commons licensed.
License Usage
Monkeyc.net’s Flickr images are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 generic licence. His collection currently stands at 971 photos, divided into 44 sets.
Bjorn Bednarek observes in Unlocking the Potential Through Creative Commons that as a former professional photojournalist, John’s choice to license all of his works under Creative Commons is encouraging:
- ‘By putting trust in the licences, and actively advocating them within the Flickr community, John is helping to legitimise and popularise Creative Commons. Whilst interested in selling his works commercially, he uses Creative Commons to share his work non-commercially.’
Motivations
John entered several of his pictures into a photo pool for the first Australian ccSalon held in Brisbane on 29 November 2006. In doing so, John described why he had embraced Creative Commons for his photos:
- ‘The decision to license my work as creative commons was an easy and almost automatic one – my work is for personal enjoyment and I want others to be able to enjoy my work and to incorporate it into their visions. Today I find photography is a personal pleasure, I no longer have to make a living from my camera – its just my vision of the world – a unique vision to me but with CC its also something you can take and turn into something from your world – the scope is infinite and it sets the images free in so many ways – The creative commons license is a perfect example of the sort of copyright changes the modern world needs to come to grips with in the digital age, information should be free to all.’
