Copyright

The content of this website, unless otherwise noted, including text, images, and video, is copyright ©James Duncan Davidson, some rights reserved, and are distributed under the terms of the Creative Common Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.

Attribution: You must attribute any usage of the work as “James Duncan Davidson” or “Duncan Davidson”. When a work was made in affiliation with an organization, such as TED, you may include the name of the organization in the attribution, for example, “James Duncan Davidson/TED”. However, you may not use the name of an organization as the sole attribution for the work.

Other individual or entity rights: Rights held by others may limit your ability to use the work. Individuals or other entities may have rights in a specific work—such as, but not limited to, publicity or privacy rights. These rights vary by jurisdiction and you may need to obtain permission from an individual or entity whose rights are affected.

Every effort has been made to properly attribute content for which other individuals or entities hold the copyright for and, wherever possible, that attribution is linked to original sources or more information about the creator.

Waivers

The distinction between commercial and noncommercial can be subject to interpretation and there is a grey area of uses between those that are obviously commercial and those that are non-commercial. I provide waivers below to clarify uses that can be construed by some as commercial that I specifically allow and encourage.

Editorial publications: Newspapers, magazines, and other editorial publications—both in print and online—may use my images in the context of a story, article, or blog post. This waiver does not apply to use on a cover in print, or to any promotional usage that could be construed as intent to entice the purchase of a publication or service.

Nonprofit organizations: Use by organizations defined as nonprofit in their jurisdiction—such as the 501© designation in the United States of America—may use my images in the context in their publications in an illustrative manner. This waiver does not apply to use on a cover in print, or to any promotional usage that could be construed as intent to entice the purchase of a publication or service.

Academic/Educational organizations: Universities, schools, scientific journals, conferences, etc… that meet the definition as nonprofit in their jurisdiction—such as the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 115 organization, and/or an IRC Section 501(c)(3) organization in the United States of America—may use my images in the context in their publications in an illustrative manner.

Speaker promotion: A public speaker who appears by themselves in a photo can designate the use of that photograph to promote their public appearances, provided that no trademarks belonging to others appear in the image and the usage as at 25% or smaller of the total size of the context it appears in.

Social media profile photos and avatars: Individuals may use their own likeness from my work as their social media avatar or profile photo on sites like Facebook and Twitter, even when attribution is impossible for such usage; provided that nobody else’s likeness appears in such usage. For example, you can use a photo I’ve made of use as your Facebook or Twitter profile photograph as long as you use a crop that omits anybody else.

Other usage terms

Licenses for other usage, such as commercial advertising, promotional usage, or simply for non-commercial use without attribution, may be available for a fee.

Documentation

If you or your organization requires signed documentation that a specific work or group of works that I own the copyright for are distributed under a Creative Commons license along with any applicable waivers, I’m happy to provide a formal document either electronically in PDF format or printed on paper and physically delivered, subject to a fee.

File requests

If you want access to a higher-resolution files than are available on this website or if you would like to see alternative images, I’m happy to help, subject to a fee for my standard hourly studio work rates and minimum charges.

Please note alternate images may not be available under the same terms and conditions as images published on this website, and that other licensing terms may apply.

Intent

Finally, a statement of my intent. Some creatives want to be compensated with money for any usage of their work. Others want to give it all away for free. Neither position works for me.

I want to be generous with the work I place here and other places online. For sure, I want anybody that I’ve made a photograph of and posted to be able to use it on their social media profile. And, I want to support non-profit use of my work. These are the kinds of usage that I get a significant non-tangible reward from.

On the other hand, strictly commercial use of my work is something that I want a more tangible benefit from. For sure, I don’t appreciate somebody making a buck off my work when I’m not benefiting in some way. As well, my time is something that I definitely can’t give free access to. So, these are the things I charge money for. And given the balance of other obligations I have, this is why I charge the minimums I do.

It works for me. Others have other approaches, and that’s perfectly OK.