Flickr used to give a subscription to Pixsy as part of its higher-tier membership, with the aim that photographers would have a way of dealing with unauthorised use of their photos.
In February 2023 they terminated this following complaints about Pixsy's behaviour.
Quoting from the article
First things first: Flickr’s new community guidelines prohibit copyleft trolling: “Failure to allow a good faith reuser the opportunity to correct errors is against the intent of the license and not in line with the values of our community, and can result in your account being removed.”
If you are targeted by a copyleft troll who demands that you pay them because of minor errors in your Creative Commons attribution, here’s how to report them and get them kicked off Flickr forever:
...what they have done is modify their policies to create a de facto CC 4.0 environment for their users, by promising to terminate the accounts of any user who repeatedly threatens legal action over bad attribution strings without first offering a 30-day grace period.
Thanks Les, That is very interesting and it is encouraging that someone with the market power of Flickr is doing something about this particular scourge.
Andy
Advice or comment provided here is not and does not purport to be legal advice as defined by s.12 of Legal Services Act 2007
Yes, I am using this in my case as one of many points that will be considered if it goes to court.
Sadly, Flickr have not suspended the profile I reported and he is so obviously trolling and I have chased them for further investigation.
So, it's not the case that Flickr will terminate the profile at all, they will investigate but I am doubting what they actually look at in their investigations.
That said, they don't support trolling and have made that clear; their guidelines changes - and in line with CC also stating the same changes - means that in my case, the photographer breached their guidelines. I can't see a court allowing an artist to benefit from their own breach.
I never got 30 days notice and I took the image down immediately. One more of many things I'm throwing at Pixsy and will repeat at the IPEC if it goes there.
I've been wondering whether to report the photographer involved in my colleague's case. He's got a big presence on Flickr with lots of photos with CC2 and CC3 and specific attribution requirements. Not a crime, of course, but he's named in several cases on forums and in Wikipedia in connection with behaviour that looks suspiciously like Pixsy trolling. But since the instances I know of are all related to Wikipedia not Flickr, it doesn't seem strong grounds to report him to Flickr. I've no evidence that he's trolled for any of his Flickr photos; I'd only know it if I came across cases here or elsewhere on the web.
Report the guy. Nothing may come of it anyway as like mentioned, I think Flickr have internal proceedings that are not clear to the rest of us. In my case, the artist is most likely a troll. Seems to me that 30,000 images on Flickr and with half of them almost the same style, looks suspicious enough. But in my case, the artist did not follow the guidelines changes - also at CC - as of March 2023 and he also did not take the opportunity to send a takedown request to me ahead of my first Pixsy threat which he could have done, even apparently from the Pixsy account. Proves he intended to use Pixsy as a business model. I'm giving a Pixsy account a whirl to see if takedowns are discouraged by Pixsy. I'm expecting it is.
Did you actually set up a Pixsy account to see if they discourage takedown notices?
When I’ve looked at reviews and other articles it suggests it’s there as an option which the account holder can opt for or not. Obviously in our cases, not!
I'll update you further when I have an email address I can use for spam. I may give it a whirl on the weekend.
Artists do get the choice and the one in my case clearly ignored it. An artist said this, I have a Pixsy match come up and their automated resolution says something not suitable for commercial action, consider sending Takedown Notice.
It proves that commercial gain was the intent. Pixsy of course hope that artists won't send one. And as of March 2023, that's against the guidelines and rules set by Flickr.
Thanks Steve. I found Cory Doctorrow's articles about Pixsy some time ago; they gave me courage to fight this. Anyone reading this in a similar position, I would strongly recommend reading his articles.
