stupid v. tricky?

The ever-excellent OutLaw reports on this case where some 16-year-old girl in Texas had her picture uploaded to flickr by her youth counsellor, a Mr Wong. Virgin used it in an ad, allegedly without permission from either Wong or the girl.

Wong apparently changed the Creative Commons licence–which defaults on flickr to ‘no use by TPs’–to the ’some rights reserved’ setting and now he and the girl’s mother have sued not only Virgin for using the picture but also the Creative Commons Corporation for allegedly failing adequately to educate and warn Wong about the meaning of the licence he had chosen (see para 35 of the Complaint).

Outlaw report that
>By default, images added to Flickr cannot be reused by third parties, even if they are made visible to all users. They are marked as “All rights reserved.” However, Flickr makes it easy to choose one of six Creative Commons licences.

>Creative Commons licences offer a middle-ground between total control over a copyright work and no control. They are described as “some rights reserved” rather than “all rights reserved”. Flickr makes it easy for users to change their default setting and with a few clicks, users can choose one of six Creative Commons licence varieties.

>Flickr directs users to the website of Creative Commons Corporation to find out about the meaning of the different licences. Wong chose an Attribution Licence, which the Creative Commons website explains, will let others copy, distribute and display your photo and derivative works based upon it, provided they give credit the way you request.

>The lawsuit says that Virgin failed to credit Wong in the ads and therefore breached the licence terms. More controversially, Wong blames the Creative Commons Corporation for failing “to adequately educate and warn him, as a user of the Creative Commons Attribution licence, of the meaning of commercial use and the ramifications and effects of entering into a licence allowing such.”

For those who have not tried it, it is *very* easy to (a) understand what the licences do and (b) to change them. Someone wanted to use one of my photos once to flog T-shirts in the Philippines. He contacted me and asked if he could use it, citing the terms of the CC licence. I allowed it. Easy enough.

What baffles me is why Mr Wong changed his default licence, especially if he was posting pictures of minors on the Net. I mean, if you say you don’t understand what your choice means, and the default is that no one can use it, wouldn’t you just leave it on the default.

Does not compute.