Creative Commons Errors: Getting It Right

If you subscribe to that, you tend to allow people chance to correct their mistakes, and it’s in that situation that you’ll discover their true character.

Take the issue of using other people’s photographs in your work. This morning, I found[ this article](http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/13/privacy-publicity-sxsw/) in my feed reader:

[](https://i0.wp.com/www.onemanandhisblog.com/content/images/2010/03/ccviolation.png)

“That picture look awfully familiar, I though.” Oh, yeah. Because it’s [one of mine](http://www.flickr.com/photos/adders/323038969/in/photostream/). And it isn’t attributed. The picture is [Creative Commons](http://creativecommons.org/ "Creative Commons") licensed, so people are free to use it, but there’s a [requirement for attribution](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en_GB). 

Fair enough, I thought. [Techcrunch](http://www.techcrunch.com "TechCrunch") has made a mistake. Let’s give them the chance to correct. I contacted the author, [Jason Kincaid](http://twitter.com/jasonkincaid "Jason Kincaid"), [via Twitter](http://twitter.com/adders/status/10520191984). And this was his response:


And sure enough, within minutes, my attribution was in place:

[](https://i0.wp.com/www.onemanandhisblog.com/content/images/2010/03/credit.png)

And that’s a model of how to do it. This is [the second time I’ve had to do this](http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/02/20/facebook-roundup-microsoft-outlook-mobile-and-moving-pictures/#comment-68257) recently, and the reaction I’ve got both times contrasts sharply with that sometimes [displayed by the mainstream media](http://boingboing.net/2010/01/16/uk-independent-edito.html). 

This is not hard. But it does require you seeing yourself as just one of a community of amateur and professional publishers. Why do traditional media types find that so hard?