How To Reference an L+E Visual

There are a couple of things you should know regarding the visuals on this blog:

1. I create the visuals myself using Adobe Illustrator, my brain and a little synthesis.
2. The visuals are designed to be shared, distributed and used outside of this blog.
3. I not only appreciate credit, I know that when it's given it benefits everyone.

To that last point, I frequently get e-mails that look something like this:

"Dear David, I was recently at a conference where a prominent speaker was using several of your visuals in their presentation without any credit whatsoever.  I thought you should know."

I also get an occasional e-mail like this:

"David, today I was asked by a supervisor to trace over one of your visuals, so that we could make it our own.  I have an issue with this".

Here's the deal.  The visuals here are "free" for everyone to use.  They are my "purple cow"—it's why most of you are readers of this blog in the first place.  And I respect that—which is why I freely give them away.  But when you take what's free and bury the source, it actually effects your own credibility more than you know.

Take this for example.  One of the most popular visuals on this blog is the experience map.  It was one of my first and I was naive enough not to put my name on it.  No doubt some folks have taken advantage of that fact.  But Google tells another story.  Thanks to the Long Tail, if you type in "Experience Map"—my visual is the #1 result.  That's better than any copyright I can throw on a graphic.

So take this advice if you like.  If you want to use a visual here without credit—it's your choice.  I can't force you to do so.  But this blog is out there—it's highly visible and it's very likely that someone who viewed your presentation with my visual will eventually find the source here.  And that affects your credibility, not mine.

For those of you who have been generous in your transparency—thank you.  I owe the success of this blog to all of you.  I've given a lot away here, but you've given me much more.

Comments

[Adam]

David,

Perhaps you could publish your visuals under a creative commons license so that it's clear how people might use them. "Free", "Use", "Share", and "Credit", are ambiguous terms. CC goes some way towards clarifying what you mean by them.

http://creativecommons.org

Is there an online repository of your visuals in vector format? *Perhaps* by providing them in a more usable/tweakable form it might inspire more attribution.

[Tim Marman]

Adam makes a good point - put them out explicitly under a license and it will encourage people to give credit.

Also, not to nitpick or anything, but they would "affect", not "effect", their credibility

[Bob Warfield]

Thank you David!

I had wanted to use several of your visuals, with attribution, but saw the copyright so didn't. Now I know that I can use them with attribution and will do so.

Thanks again,

BW

[David Armano]

Adam,

I'll re-consider the CC license. Looks like it could help clarify. I doubt that I will post the vector source files.

Tim, thanks, I will make that correction!

Bob, I never thought about the "copyright" discouraging use. Maybe another reason to go with Creative Commons.
I was following Hugh Macleod's lead which seems like a good practice.

[steve clayton]

beautifully put David and also highlighted the experience map for me which I'd not seen before. rest assured I'll be crediting that all over in the coming weeks!

see you @MIX?

steve

[David armano]

Steve, most definitely. I'm in Vegas from tues to Friday next week. Let's connect for sure.

[gabby]

Awesome clarifying post. Still, I am stunned by how few people understand copyright law, which does make provisions for Fair Use. Although Creative Commons has been successfully defended in Dutch courts, I don't know of any success in American courts, or whether CC supersedes one's original copyright.

[Adam]

Fair use... a visual published under a Share Alike CC License would enable people to take a visual, tweak or remix it and republish under the same SA license giving attribution to the original author.

Copyright simply doesn't include any provision for such activity. "Use" as an idea under copyright is far too limited, especially in light of the ease of making digital copies and distributing them.

I have to admit, I have remade and tweaked an L+E visual in illustrator for a client pres. This is why I suggest uploading the vectors. It saves time (provides service) and if published under a SA CC license any derivative work would have to be published under a SA in turn (creates wealth).

Now, if only Typepad and Wordpress would support SVG formats they'd be no need to chose between blogging bitmaps or vectors!

BTW, "accessible" is spelt incorrectly in the above visual. No biggie, but if I wanted to present this as part of client presentation... y'know? I'd need to tweak it first.

Publish vectors under a CC SA.

CC or some improved form of it is just inevitable. The use of CC doesn't need to be legally robust in this case. It's more of gesture and common understanding.

[David Armano]

Adam,

Yet another reason to credit me. I'll take the hit on the typos, but you still get to look like a genius! :-)