Licensing Pix

If I had a really cool image, I don't know what I would do.  If it is political or something that needs to be shared by all, I would probably put it in the public domain.  For my standard photos, I may choose the copyright.  Some of the pictures may contain people that don't want their images distributed.  Just because I have their permission to post the picture, doesn't give me the right to distribute it.

I wanted to survey the availability of public domain images.  A quick search gave several websites declaring they had public domain photos.  However, when going to these sites, you had to pay to get the watermark removed from the photo, whether it be purchasing "credits" or paying for access to their website.  No thanks.

I then went to photosharing sites such as Flickr and Picassa.  Flickr, as noted on thepodlington's blog, made it challenging to find an honest to goodness public domain photo.  Picassa had all the rights listed.  I also ran across FIST, the free image search tool,  I didn't get many results on a search for Cambodia.  A bit challenging to use and needs more work.

I finally checked out wikicommons.  A quick search on Cambodia yielded some results.  I chose this picture.  Looking at the license, I knew I could use this.

 

It reminded me of my trip to Cambodia and how street vendors mobbed our tour bus as we ferried across the Mekong.  I believe the author of the this photo submitted it to bring awareness of what to expect at a border crossing.  Would I release this photo?  It does draw attention to the plight of people and may help raise awareness, but do I have their permission to even publish this picture?  Did the photographer ask to take their picture?  I would put a copyright on this to be on the safe side.