About a month ago a friend pointed me to an article which used a photograph of mine. The trouble was, this was a commercial use of my photo and while they did attribute the photo to me, my CC-BY-NC license didn’t allow for commercial use without asking me first. So, I took a chance and sent the author of the article my a $50 invoice for reprinting my photo. I didn’t ask them to take it down, I just asked that they pay me for the use.
I didn’t hear back for a week so I sent a follow-up invoice requesting that at a minimum I receive a response form them with how they planned on addressing the issue. Their response: the check is in the mail.
Lo an behold a few days later I received payment in the amount of $50. No apology, but here’s hoping that they learned their lesson.
(Thanks to Kathy D. for the heads up and I think my standard licensing fee just increased.)
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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