This website—including text, photographs, and videos—is copyright © Edwin M. van Nuil. Some rights reserved. Any content that appears here that belongs to other individuals or entities is attributed and, wherever possible, linked to original sources. This page documents the default license I use for my creative works, the waivers I provide to that license, and how to request other waivers for uses that aren’t otherwise permitted.

INTENT AND RATIONALE

It’s a digital world and the balance of copyright isn’t what it used to be. The old school media industry has responded with fear and loathing. Me, I’d rather poke my eyes out than treat people who like my work as criminals. In fact, for the most part, it’s my intent to share the work I publish as openly as possible—including editorially—while reserving the right to charge for uses that are obviously making somebody else a buck off of my labor or to provide something of tangible value to a customer. When it comes to my creative work where copyright applies, my intent is to charge for the following cases and situations:
  • Commercial use of my work that clearly and directly financially benefits some other person or entity. Advertising, for example. Book and magazine covers where the intent is to entice somebody to purchase. Posters. Anything with a company logo. This is by no means a complete list, just an illustrative one.
  • Use of my time working with my copyrighted materials, such as pulling high resolution files for delivery or working with Photoshop. Even though I fully support and encourage non-commercial and/or editorial uses of my work (with attribution), I can’t give much of my time away. It’s the scarcest resource I have.
  • Directed use of my creativity in creating copyrighted materials. This means being on site making images for a client or tucked away in a café writing an article.
  • Creating and selling special editions or packages of my work, such as making prints or selling books in a variety of formats, physical and electronic.
This isn’t an exact science and creative professionals everywhere are finding that they have to rewrite and fine-tune their game plane as we move further into the twenty-first century, but these are my guiding lights. All that said, let’s get to the formal bits.

LICENSE

Unless otherwise indicated, the photographs, videos, and writing that appear on this site and to which I own the copyright for is distributed under the Creative Common Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC 3.0) License. This license does not replace or remove copyright. Instead it defines clear and reasonable terms for common uses. The full legal text of the license can be summarized as: *You are free to copy, distribute, and transmit the work under the following conditions and limitations: *
  • Attribution: You must attribute the work to Edwin M. van Nuil and link the attribution to http://vannuil.com when the attribution is made in a linkable form.
  • Noncommercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. It is important to note that 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.
  • Other rights 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.
IMPORTANT: This license does not apply to works that appear on this website with permission that are owned by other individuals or entities. It also does not apply to works on this website that are clearly marked as being distributed with other terms, such as under the CC BY, CC BY-SA, and CC BY-NC-ND licenses, or or marked as all rights reserved. WORK THAT APPEARS ELSEWHERE: I distribute and license my work to third parties under a variety of license terms. The license and waivers described here do not necessarily apply to my work that appears elsewhere. When no indication of terms appears on such third party usage of my work, you must assume that the work is not distributed under a Creative Commons license. Get in touch with details if you’re unsure about the provenance of any of my works.

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE WAIVERS

To enable certain uses without the need for the negotiation of a separate license, the following waivers are hereby granted for the use of works I distribute under the terms of any Creative Commons license:

Commercial use waivers

  • Editorial publications: Newspapers, magazines, and other editorial publications—both in print and online—may use my work 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(c) designation in the United States—may use my work in the context in their publications or on their websites.
  • 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 and the usage as at 25% or smaller of the total size of the context it appears in.

Attribution waiver

  • 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 you as your Facebook or Twitter profile photograph as long as you use a crop that omits anybody else.

REQUESTING OTHER LICENSE TERMS OR WAIVERS

If you would like to use my work in a way that is not provided for by the license it is distributed under or any applicable waivers listed above, other license terms or waivers may be available for a negotiated fee, depending on the use. Such uses include:
  • Commercial uses, including advertising and promotion: License fees for advertising or promotional use—including magazine covers, book covers, and similar usage—vary depending on the manner and duration of usage. The minimum fee of issuance of a license for these uses is $250.
  • Non attributed use: Use without attribution, unless covered by the waiver listed above, requires a minimum fee of $500, no matter any other usage terms licensed or granted.
If you are interested in discussing uses that require such licensing terms, please contact me with as many details of your intended usage as possible are.

IMAGE FILE REQUESTS

If you would like to use an image that I’ve licensed under a Creative Commons license, but need a higher resolution version or would like to see possible alternates, I’m happy to help. For this service, I charge my standard studio hourly work rates, with a 1 hour minimum. Contact me with your specific requirements. Please note that I reserve the right to provide alternates and higher resolution photographs under different license terms than the terms a smaller size is distributed under.

LICENSE AND WAIVER DOCUMENTATION

If you or your organization requires 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. My hourly studio rates (1 hour minimum) and any expedited delivery charges from wherever I am in the world apply. Please contact me with your specific requirements.