• Reported by Nate

By now you're probably heard of Flickr, you might even have a free or pro account setup, and, if you're like myself and many others, you might enjoy the service immensely. So this post is about the photo licensing options within Flickr, which I think are worth noting, and in most cases - changing from the default setting.

The default setting for any photo uploaded into Flickr is "All Rights Reserved", this of course makes sense for folks new to the system. You, however might be a more accomplished Flickr user, uploading sometimes high-quality snaps from your digital camera, snaps that often would make great stock photos. Why not share those snaps? Flickr has folded the Creative Commons system into the administration interface, so you can apply a default license to all new photos you upload, and you can even modify all previously uploaded photos at once. You can choose from six licenses with differing permissions, by going to "Your Account", and finding the "Photo Licensing" link under the "Photo Settings" header. You can also set licensing for individual photos by finding the "licensing" link, near the stats for that photo.

Next step, join the Stock Repository group, and shoot your favorite photos to the group. That's where I found the photo you see here in this post, "Green layers", by nospuds, which he released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 license.

The bottom line: check out your license settings, you might be open to letting folks use your photos - everyone benefits.