Hmm... the low opinion of copyright protection expressed on their page is disappointing. Aside from that though, is their reporting process that different from any other hosting service?

I can see it from their point of view, and it is a tricky situation. Hopefully, the number of people abusing the service is small.

(I work for Flickr.) I am not sure what you think we could do to keep people from posting copyrighted images. We are more than happy to investigate claims of copyright infringment from copyright holders and take action when necessary, but there is simply no way to investigate each and every photo uploaded to Flickr to make sure it has not been yoinked from someone. If you can't recommend Flickr for this reason, then surely you have to recommend people not use the web at all :)

I think you have missed my point. I know you cannot monitor all the images posted. However, if someone is brought to your attention as using the service for the posting of copyright images can you not do something? If you don't, then it means everyone can use the service to post other people's work as their own + they can apply a creative commons license which can open it to further abuse. I'm not recommending Flickr because you are not prepared to deal realistically with people who post a stream of copyright images. Asking each copyright holder to contact you is unrealistic. I would suggest that you add a button to each photo for investigation as possible copyright infringement. However, until you change your policy, it doesn't really help. I don't envy your (Ludicorp's) position.

Hi Jon - I also work at Flickr :) I think we just have different ideas of realistic. The DMCA is pretty explicit in spelling out the responsibilities of a service provider like Flickr, and we comply with them completely. We have taken down copyrighted material at the owners request on several occasions. Here's the thing: it is unrealistic for us to investigate every case of possible copyright infringement, even if a user clicks a button to tell us that infringement is a possiblity. The viewer won't know if the image is actually public domain or is otherwise licensed in such a way that makes that use acceptable. The viewer won't know if the photo is posted by the actual owner, or if the poster has specific permission. If we had to investigate every claim, with millions or tens of millions of photos and millions or tens of millions of people viewing them, we'd go out of business pretty fast. That's why the laws were designed they were (and fairly, I think, in this case). Just like it is not up to you to decide whether or not a person you see on your neighbor's lawn is trespassing, it is not up to you to decide whether or not a copyright violation has occured - it's up to the property owner in both cases. (You're welcome to alert the property owner in either case, of course, and I definitely grant that there are some pretty obvious cases - we'll work on ways to make it all a little easier.) One final bit of analogy: would you expect your ISP to delete posts on your blog because a random viewer sent them an email saying that you posted something that was copyrighted? If not, do you recommend your ISP? ;) [Ana: though many of us as individuals would prefer that more creative work enters the public domain, we don't, as individuals or as a company, have a low opinion of copyright protection generally. We do have a low opinion about specific laws and provisions in certain jurisdictions, the biggest of which is the continual extensions of the term of copyright in the US.)

Thanks for your response. Yes, I can see what you are saying. I suppose this is an ongoing problem for any online service. Okay, I will give it a go - I don't think we should let a few rotten apples spoil it for the rest of us.

Cool - thanks Jon :) (And, for the record: I'm not fond of the use of Flickr you pointed out above either. It's not interesting, it has no value to any other user (and no value of any real significance to the poster either), uses up our storage, bandwidth and cpus, etc. We *are* thinking about the best way to handle it going forward, but we're also just working on a lot of other stuff at the same time :)