Response to “Licenses and Images”
I’m having mixed feelings with regard to the Wired article on image licenses. On the one hand, I completely agree that copyrights on digital images have put graphically uncreative or photographically challenged (me without camera) bloggers with a huge inconvenience in searching for cool images to put up. When I don’t use photos of things I’m reviewing, I like to create my own images - AllOfMP3/Russia and Universal/Borg, for example - but even these are based on copyrighted logos, though I like to think they’re protected under fair use, being parody and all.
NetUtopia is on its way, but until then, I’ll declare here and now: All images I create on this site for the purpose of blog posts are from this point forward under a creative commons license. Go use the Microsoft/China logo on your own blog. You can even email me to change the background to a different color if the dark gray clashes. Or to tell me that I’m just flattering myself thinking that people are going to use them. A link back here would be cool (it would be cool even if you didn’t use the images; I’m always happy for referrers!), but it’s not like I’m going to sue if you don’t. I probably won’t even complain.
If only the rest of blogdom were so magnanimous.
Secondly, on the topic of HTML bloat, I believe a license tag would be a non-solution that makes a completely unrelated problem worse. First, hardly anyone will use the tag, because it adds to their markup without adding to the site’s functionality. I’m all for markup that makes sense, but the W3C has already taken it to ridiculous extremes. What was wrong with the <i> tag that <em> had to replace it? What difference does it make if I “emphasize” a block of text rather than “italicize” it? Why can’t screen readers emphasize the <i> tag instead of creating a different tag?
The <i> and <b> tags will never go away for 2 reasons. They’re shorter than <em> or <cite> and <strong>, respectively, and elementary web design classes still teach them that way. This is just one example of the problem: the ‘alt’ attribute requirement for the <img> tag, for example. The argument that “the tag is already bloated enough” is an argument for getting rid of and condensing attributes (getting rid of ‘alt’ and using ‘title’ for that purpose would be a good start), not adding more.
The only tag I can think of that would warrant a license attribute would be the <body> tag to indicate content as a whole rather than individual elements thereof as creative commons or other licenses. I still wouldn’t agree with putting it there, but I could at least see why it would be wanted.
A license attribute on any tag would also not solve the underlying problem that images are not legally copyable. Stay tuned for more on that…
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