Here is what will seem to many of you as a naive question, I have a number of pictures here on ATP and have always clicked on public domain when posting them.. I take them for my own pleasure, to share, and for no other reason. I am happy when someone on ATP uses one of them in an article. Is there any reason I should be reserving rights on them?

If you list it as public domain anybody can use them anywhere for any reason. If you have no problem with that, then there is no reason to change. If you want some control over how or where they are used then you might want to change the status.

I rather don't like the little printing that comes with a protected photo, and I'm also rather complemented if/when someone uses one of my photos. I don't fancy myself as any sort of photo-pro, a nicely composed photo is usually a total surprise to me.

Exactly my sentiments Deb. Writing across a good picture spoils it for me also.

I had occasion in another garden forum to ask a series of people if I could use a postage-stamp size version of their photo on a label for seed packets that were to be given away or swapped.

Every single person who answered was delighted and/or flattered that their photo was wanted.

Well, one person did want to be sure that no one would make any profit from their photo.

I also feel flattered when someone thinks one of my photos is worthy of some use.

Licensing it as public domain means that someone else (even from another website) can take the image and claim it as their own, using it however they like, even in circumstances that you don't agree with.

I think it's a mistake to license them as public domain. If you want them to be freely used elsewhere but with attribution, then it's better to use the creative commons license.

In other words, I don't think you should use public domain.

If you ultimately decide that you don't want to use public domain, I can write a script to change the license on all of your photos (otherwise it'll take you forever to change them one by one).

Thanks Dave and to each of you who responded. I respect your advice Dave and would be grateful if you could change them all to creative commons with out to much bother. I will use CC from now on.

I'll make it happen Paul.

Many thanks Dave.

I agree you should have some say in how your picture is being used. There are false ads on E-bay and Amazon using pictures from cubits that were not protected. They are selling seeds of a plant that does not exist and was an April Fools joke. Neither co. will do anything about it.

I hadn't heard that Bob. That's disgusting.

Paul, I have updated your images to all have a CC license.

Now, in the future, please do the following when you post an image:

Click on "Creative Commons" as the license. Then, it's important that you click on "Attribution", "NonCommercial" and "No Derivatives". Leave ShareAlike unchecked. Then before you finish, check off the box that says to make this your new default license.

Then all future uploads you make will have that same license automatically without you having to check them off each time.

Great....as always Thanks so much for the help. I will carefully follow your instructions in the future....have a few to do this afternoon.