I’ve been really down on people who use my Creative Commons photos incorrectly. I find that a number of sites don’t credit me for the work and an even larger percentage don’t include the licensing with the image. It’s a pain in the ass to track sites down and play bad cop. I don’t like pestering people to read the CC license and follow the rules, but I dislike feeling cheated and used even more. As I told a recent violator (Gridskipper), Creative Commons is all about respect.

But this post isn’t about bad cop, it’s about the good that comes from being good to me. See, for a while now, I’ve had a policy of reposting Creative Commons images that have been correctly licensed by other sites. These I find in a myriad of ways — Google alerts, Flickr traffic, reverse image look-ups like Tin Eye, etc.

Why is this tracking good for people who use CC the way it was intended?

• More links to your blog/website/etc = increase traffic!
• More external links also helps your SEO ranking for keyword search!
• I post at Tumblr blog which then gets reposted to this blog, Twitter, FriendFeed, etc. Your work gets exposure to my network!
• I also post links to the original photo reference in Flickr — more traffic, more link juice for you!
• There’s a basis for a future partnership and/or collaboration.

That last one may not seem obvious, but think about it…eventually sites need a particular shot or custom photography. Who are you going to work with? Someone whose work you’ve used repeatedly and whose visual vocabulary you understand. If you play fair and extend that respect, then of course a photographer will be thrilled to work with you.

Attributing Creative Commons licensed photos is good karma that can pay off for you, and it doesn’t take long to do it correctly. Spread the word.