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Unsplash images are no longer in the public domain(creativecommons.org)

over 6 years ago from Christopher Skillicorn, Designer

  • Jacob CooperJacob Cooper, over 6 years ago

    So... wondering if I get this right: A side project that was radical with the idea of sharing by default images in the public domain gets love from a community, grows with and because of its community, becomes a company, gets money from investors, and hey... here we switch to start milking the community. This is smelly, isn't it? Why?.

    22 points
    • Rizwan Javaid, over 6 years ago

      Yeah, it's a shady move by them.

      8 points
    • Stephanie Liverani, over 6 years ago

      Hey Jacob,

      The change in the Unsplash License affects mainly those copycat sites that pull images from Unsplash, slap them on their site, and don't credit (or properly credit contributors). We were receiving countless complaints from our community, and felt that this is not the type of usage that we want to support.

      We elaborated on that here: https://community.unsplash.com/help-section/what-is-the-unsplash-license-and-where-can-i-find-it

      and in our Manifesto: https://community.unsplash.com/articles/manifesto

      The Unsplash License is very similar to the CC0 License, in that it supports creativity, free usage of photos under personal and commercial use, and it is sub-licensable and nonrevokable.

      It's unfortunate that the article shared by the CC team portrays the License in such a way that is different to CC0, but the spirit is still the same.

      We felt that it was important to share our point of view, so we put together this response to the Creative Commons post: https://community.unsplash.com/articles/inresponsetocc

      Hope this clarifies, but it would be my pleasure to answer any additional questions you may have.

      Thanks!

      17 points
      • Chiron ZorChiron Zor, over 6 years ago

        Well, the main point of CC0 is to waive every right.

        So, no. The Unsplash License is not similar to CC0.

        If people want credit, they could use CC BY.

        Once been CC0, the photos are loosed in the wild. You can do nothing to how they have been used. The people who complained didn't understand CC0 correctly.

        What Unsplash could do, is adding more option like CC BY, and inform people how CC0 works.

        What Unsplash did, is purely selfish and business driven.

        6 points
        • Luke ChesserLuke Chesser, over 6 years ago

          CC BY has nothing to do with what we were addressing when we made the change. Attribution is not required on the Unsplash License. The only change is with regards to redistributing the photos.

          As I explain below, this is something that has been requested by our community for years because of the real-world flaws with CC0.

          We make the reasons for the change very clear here https://community.unsplash.com/articles/unsplashlicense

          1 point