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March 15, 2007
How Winnie Became a Greeting Card
One of my cats is now famous - sort of. Winston, our orange tabby, is now a greeting card.
I just received 100 complimentary copies of the greeting card, which was published by Avanti Press. Apparently some people have even seen it at places like UPS Stores, but I hadn't, so this was the first chance for me to see Winnie on glossy, thick paper stock.
Avanti originally approached me last summer and asked to license the photo, which I thought was great. The boilerplate language said I would be giving them exclusive rights to use the pic worldwide for a certain period of time. But I'd already published the pic on Flickr using a noncommercial-attribute-sharealike Creative Commons license, and I didn't want to revoke those rights for all of those people who had taken advantage of it.
My contact at Avanti wasn't familiar with Creative Commons, so I sent her some info along with links to the legal deed. A month or so later, she sent back a new contract that was revised to acknowledge the photo was licensed under Creative Commons, and that I was specifically allowing them to use the photo for commercial purposes on greeting cards. They're happy, I'm happy, Creative Commons prevails, and Winnie gets to be on a greeting card. Life is good sometimes. -andy
Posted by acarvin at March 15, 2007 8:05 PM
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