Hi all, I have started writing a blog on fair trade images and licenses, and I just found out Pilens also mentioned fair trade images on his website. Basically Symbiostock is working, connecting brainwaves. 

But what if we start replacing royalty free with fair trade? Maybe we can start a new wave, a new terminology. Fair trade meaning, 100% royalty for the artist as it should be.

We can label our site fair trade sites with fair trade licenses  or fair trade stock images.

Thoughts?

Another point is SEO, will it have a negative effect?

We can't know how far we can get the term "fair trade license" out there unless we try.

Could be risky for SEO but I have removed any mentioning of RF on my site a while ago. I hope the term "stock photo" is still SEO relevant enough.
I also have what I call a "premium collection" on my site, which is exclusively there and nowhere else. I think it is worth taking the risk of losing out on some micro income in order to try making SY fly.

Actually, regarding recent news from IS, BS, 123rf...  (you name it) I find it much more risky to continue depending on micros alone.

It is nice idea!

Regarding the SEO impact.
I dare to say that removal of royalty-free words will have minimal negative impact on SEO (if any).

Most of image buyers search for images in external search engines using keywords and phrases describing images they are looking for. Such as if buyers are looking for images of Orava castle they simply type Orava castle, or Orava castle images/photos, or similar phrase.

How about Royalty Fair instead of Royalty Free?

Good stuff guys,

These photographers direct, do they have copyright to the phrase fair trade images, or do they have an organisation that you have to part of to claim your images are fair trade? Like a certificate your fridge is green, its need to fulfill certain criteria.

If they dont have anything official registered we can call what we do what we want, no?

I don't think they have any control over 'fair trade' - like 'royalty free', you can define it how you want

there a fairtrade org -- http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/resources/photo_library/

I like this idea a lot.  It is yet another way to be different from the big boys.... I think I will work on putting it to work on my site.

Love the Fair Trade idea!  First thought tho is how would one go about communicating the license length?  A fair trade image could be either RF or RM.  Maybe refer to it as Fair Trade RF or Fair Trade RM?  This would keep the benefit of the the well known terms RF and RM (as well as any seo benefits related to those terms).  After all, fair trade coffee is still "coffee" but by adding the "Fair Trade" designation it further distinguishes and defines it.

Bryan

I guess I don't know about renaming the RF license (I'm OK with it as is), but I was looking for some kind of universal fair trade, artist owned or local symbol at one time to display on my site. I couldn't find a universal standard for that though, so I abandoned the idea.

I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea to develop the concept from scratch though. Not that I am volunteering for the job. I'm just throwing the idea out there. I'd definitely be willing to help, but it really depends on the details.

Edit: I guess if nothing else, it can be some kind of link in link out organization.

I sort of like the idea of getting away from terminologies/ideas involving the word "free"

You've got a point there Leo.  I'd also kind of like to get away from the use forever idea.  Give users a good long time frame, maybe 5 years but not forever.  I also think this would be a good way for each of us to limit our liability a bit if we ever ran afoul of any IP rights.  By limiting image use to 5, 7 or even 10 years versus "forever" we would be able to ultimately remove an image from the market thereby limiting potential damages.

"Royalty Free" is a very unfortunate term for artists trying to sell license their work. It not only implies "Freebie" it is also practically un-translate-able into any language other than English. If you know another language just try one of those free online translation tools for a good laugh.

I hope that we can come up with some other word (even if the license terms are still effectively RF) just to raise awareness for the fair trade concept of selling direct.

I simply refuse to believe that most image buyers don't care about us image producers and are happy with feeding greedy bloodsuckers middlemen. I believe given a powerful image search within a big enough collection, smooth, fast and reliable payment/download transaction and a good overall experience (think: farmers market) it will be easy to win image buyers for fair trade and using SY.

The hard part is providing such a well-functioning system and that "woow-that-was-easy-to-find-and-license-just-the-right-image-I-wanted" buyer experience. Well, I guess we are working on it

A few ideas for our Fair Trade sites for those who want to use the term to try and get somewhere between RF and totally RM

No Royalty free mention on the site only Fair Trade
A fixed term of use - I would think 2 years would be enough  because
books  - if they are being reprinted then they are selling well so can afford to buy again
websites - are usually updated within this time
why should anyone be able to pay a few pounds for an image and be able to use it for whatever they like for forever more? 

Any other thoughts from those who would like to use a Fairtrade or FairUse licence (think one word is better so that the initials don't stand for anything else)

Guys, the last bit I need to change, but cant find where. Is that on the PHP file?

Sorry, the /image page where our portfolio sits

I have found the code, but cant find the file name that has that piece of code 

Anyhoo, I dont want to derail this thread. Back to fair trade images 

I cannot find it when I look for it on my site - either missing something or it is a setting we can change in the symbiostock pages ?

Ron.... make sure you let us know about your blog post when it is up... the more linking we do between blogs the higher our "google juice" is...

Here you go

http://semmickphoto.com/2013/06/10/symbiostock-fair-trade-image-licenses/

Approved by Leo himself  Feel free to quote, link back, ping back, share, whatever is needed to get the word out.

I'm not using SY yet but I plan to after a house move and dealing with a bunch of other stuff.

After reading Ron's Blog and looking at the umming and ah-ing in this thread over terminology, I'm just going to throw this out there. It's particularly appealing given terminology used elsewhere. Well to me, at least and also, I suspect to Ron given his comments elsewhere on MSG.

Anyhow, what about "Co-operative Licensing"?

Fits nicely with Leo's "Symbiotic" undercurrent (what else is symbiosis if not co-operation?) and implies fairness for both contributors and end users.

As for length of licences and stipulating usage, another idea may be to borrow from Creative Commons. So you could have different pricing for commercial vs non-commercial, sensitive use, derivatives, along with 1 year, 3 year, 5 year, or open-ended durations, all carrying an attribution requirement.

So anyone for a CL BY-NC-ND-1-Blogee? (I'm half joking; just an idea but it could be based on something like this).

Feel free to micturate on my french fries if you think I'm off beam.

Yes and no. RM is one time specific use license, not a term license. RF is a term use or unlimited for whatever they want it for. Part of the problem that makes Alamy confusing is the "exclusive" RM license, which most of us don't get into and even if we do, it's not that often. So the bottom line on the RF vs RM is not exclusive but a use once vs many definition contract.

Yes I like the license term limit. Wouldn't matter much if it's two years or five. (to me) Most people are going to use it and be done, move on. Text books are an obscure example, and they are updated pretty often. They should obtain a new license each time. But the limit does more for my opinion that a buyer doesn't have rights forever, just buying one simple license.

Yes adding a license limit in the metadata is a nice idea, just in case. Many people don't read it and even more, don't even know it exists. 

I like the Fair Trade designation and concept. Many people who are into politics and all the social policies, will alike it too. We could call the license, "Tin Can" and it doesn't matter what the name is, it's what's inside. Fair Trade License gives the impression that it should, the artists are receiving a portion of the profits. 100% is a portion, right?

Of course the Green movement has it's own ideas about Fair Trade: Politics and power as usual.

"Fair Trade principles and certification

While ethical trade is part of the spirit of Fair Trade, they are two very different things. In order for a merchant to be able to authentically be able to claim Fair Trade status, the goods and services sold must:

a) Create opportunities for marginalized groups
b) Demonstrate transparent management and full accountability
c) Encourage the independence of producers
d) Pay the producer a fair price
e) Women workers must be properly valued and rewarded
f) Provide a safe and healthy working environment for producers
g) Demonstrate good environmental practices and responsible methods of production
h) Respect the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
i) Promote Fair Trade and educate others on the concept"

WOW! Can we use the term "fair trade" or are some Green Living anarchists going to come after us? LOL

This whole discussion brings me back to something I tried to explain a while back. We all know that we can't sell a file on Alamy as RM if that file is RF on another site. RM is just a different sort of licence (yes, with different prices for usage, but that is up to the seller/agency to set up those terms). If we have the Symbio sites selling fair trade licenses that have some sort of expiry, then they are no longer RF and so we could logically (and legally?) sell the same image as RM on Alamy and as FT on our own sites.

Yes?

Steve

IMO, you can't use "fair trade", because that doesn't apply to the licensing side of the agreement at all.  That relates to something that happens on the back end.  You want a term that in some way describes the license so the buyer has a general idea of what he's getting into.  "Fair trade" is nebulous.  What is "fair" for one person, isn't for another.

"royalty free" - no further royalties to be paid, in contrast with the current at the time system of continuing to have to renew and pay royalties.

New ideas:
LR - limited rights
NFR - no further royalties
OTP - one time payment
RL - rights limited
EZR - easy rights
GR - general restrictions

Personally, I like OTP .  It doesn't have the negative stigma of "limited".

Are you down with OTP?

-

I'm just going to assume this said, "Yeah, you know me".

Seems like everyone wants this new license term to do two things at the same time: indicate that the customer is buying direct from the artist and also indicate the type of rights being given. It's tricky.

I like Sean's OTP (one time payment) but that doesn't say anything about buying direct. And of course I love the sound of "Fair Trade" but that says nothing about what the customer is buying.

This is clunky as all heck, but it seems like it should be a mix of the two, a sort of "One-Time Direct License" or something to that effect.

And even then, is "one-time" really right? If someone buys a regular license and then needs to go back and get an EL, that initial license really wasn't "one-time" nor did it cover everything the buyer needed.

Just to provide another good example of an anti-RF sort of new license, Creative Market came up with their own license type called SimpleLicense: https://creativemarket.com/licenses/simple

Have to give them credit for a good name. It's very user-friendly.

I am using my version of the SS license. I dont want to adapt to a general umbrella Symbiostock license or whatever direction its going. I dont mind changing the name to whatever, but I am sticking with my own licensing terms if you guys dont mind.

I am not going to use someone else's license. Agreeing on a mutual license is impossible anyway. We are all individuals, in a network of people who want to sell direct. If we are going to agree on a similar license, similar naming, reviewing each others files, etc etc, then it becomes a regulated thing, which is something I dont want. I want to be independent but happy to be part of this network. Plus, there could be thousands of people using this theme in a year, all doing their own thing. You cant stop nor regulate that.

I started this thread for opinions on renaming royalty free, but I didnt mean to make it mandatory or something. Anyone can call it how they want.