So Steven notes that Virgin Mobile have pulled the Flickr campaign and Katie weighs in with some observations. Now I find the following rather depressing:
The general agency spot poll consensus is “Yeah Flickr is a great place to get free photos”.
But Flickr is not a stock photo agency. It's a tool that people use to share their experiences. Most Flickr users are not after the money - there's istockphoto for that (although few people would turn down scads of cash if offered) - they are after the lurve, the sharing good times with friends.
The issue Virgin Mobile hit was less one of intellectual property & remuneration (although their slackness left them vulnerable to retribution via this method) but rather that they took away people's fun. Which is ironic because Virgin Mobile's brand is all about young people sharing their fun (presumably regardless of whether they are "cool" or not).
The question Virgin Mobile should have asked (and hindsight is always 20-20) was: How can we use Flickr to help our customers have more fun with our product? And in doing both market ourselves AND drive usage of our data services (a critical emerging source of revenue for mobile providers). Presumably some phone carrier in the world is smart enough to have done something around this already?
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5 comments:
The quote you mention comes from the Bannerblog post: http://www.bannerblog.com.au/news/2007/07/virgin_mobile_flickr_lawsuit.php
While I think that Flickr is useful for internal communication- like a moodboard, you are absolutely right in saying it's not a stockphoto resource.
Apologies for the mix-up Katie - I stand corrected - attribution is important!
I think that Flickr is one of the most interesting sites on the web right now because it taps into our desire to share our experiences with friends & others in a very tangible way.
And it highlights some of the complexities of "ownership" that you get in gift economies - which I don't think we're used to in the business world. There's something there about the flow of intangibles...
I'm not sure we can say definitively that flickr is for this or that. Part of why I think flickr works well is that it's adaptable to many uses, and getting some attention to your photographs and possible sale from that attention isn't out of bounds.
I've been contacted and paid for some of my photos, but my main reason for posting them is to show my creative work. Except when I post pictures from events, which I hope will show people what I'm up to. When I travel I want to show where I've been. When I post a screenshot from an interface in progress I am looking for feedback.
Any of these are what flickr is to me at any given time, and some of those activities are commercial while others are decidedly not, and some will change with circumstances over time. Such is the nature of actual life.
What Virgin could have done would be to run the campaign with flickr users invited to submit photos, and doling out prizes and accolades to winners. They would have been able to capitalize on the vibrancy of the community, as they put it, and treated flickr members according to the spirit as well as the letter of the creative commons license.
Part of why I think flickr works well is that it's adaptable to many uses, and getting some attention to your photographs and possible sale from that attention isn't out of bounds... Such is the nature of actual life.
Todd - Excellent points! And thanks for coming to comment BTW.
Gift economies....wow.
I think I need to explore that- thanks Matt
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