I have over 20,000 images at Flickr.com/bike, many of which are available for you or anyone else to use for any purpose you want under the Creative Commons “Share Alike – Attribution Required” license.

This means you are free to adapt, copy, and distribute my images with attribution as specified by me. Many people are pretty sloppy with the attribution part. It should look something like this:

 

Note my name and the link to my website. Note also that the Share Alike license has a requirement that any altered form of the image must have a similar “Share Alike” license applied to it. My terms of use are easily accessed on my Flickr profile page. You’ve seen my photos used in Bicycling magazine, by the League of American Bicyclists, and several other advocacy groups and publications. I readily admit most of my images are less than great, but I have a few decent photos in there.

I’ve waived the “Share Alike” requirement for most people who ask. I’m inflexible on the attribution requirement — I want credit for my work in exchange for your otherwise free use of my photo. Sometimes I find my photos used online without the required attribution. I generally ask nicely for credit; the publisher apologizes, makes the requested update, and we’re both happy. I’ll even give them a little social media boost in return.

For my part, I try also to ensure attribution is available somewhere in my blog postings, but I’ve forgotten on occasion, and appreciate when somebody points out my mistake so I can rectify the error. You will find exceptions in Cyclelicious: those will be images provided either for PR purposes, or certain types of stock images for which attribution is unavailable or not required in the license. I’ve also paid to use some of the photos and other images on these pages.

The photo above was shot on February 19, 2009 on the Willow Road bridge over Highway 101 in Menlo Park, California. I’m thrilled publications can use it to illustrate a story about the benefits of a daily bike commute in weight loss, but please credit the image. Thank you.