I posted on my Facebook Page about this new partnership (see last post on this blog, too) and, on FB, photographer Luke Copping posted a comment pointing out something important I want to share with you here. When you upload “projects” to Behance, there are several pages of information you need to provide (like key words, etc.). One of those pages deals with copyright and, sadly, Behance makes CC the default. Worse still, they make it sound like if you choose otherwise, you are doing something bad for your business.
This is not true. In fact, the opposite is true (CC is very bad for creative professionals–see previous posts on Lessig and CC, etc.).
The good news is that you can (and MUST) de-select CC as your copyright/licensing choice. I took a screen-shot of the page in question and all you have to do is select the choice marked with the big arrow I added (click the pic for larger version):
Luke went on to say that once you have made this selection, Behance is respectful of it. When they want to share your project with a third party site (or whatever) they simply ask permission.
Gee, that’s not so hard now is it Behance? After all, you (Behance) have your copyright notice all over the Behance-related sites and all your materials so you understand that copyright protections are important (see #11 of your own Terms of Service). For creative professionals, preserving copyright (including not diluting it through CC use) is vital, so why not change that default? Kthxbye.
Thanks very much for writing about this. I’m in the process of building my first project on the Behance, (I keep wanting to call it Beyonce) and I was aggravated when I reached the copyright page.
I guess they’re hoping that the Behance can be a communal online studio, where creative people can give and take from one another’s work. In a way it’s a nice idea, I guess, except for the “leave your work open to the public and keep your fingers crossed as you wait and see what happens” part. I’d be a lot more open to collaborative work in person than I am online, where there’s no way of really knowing what’s happening to it.
D.