I’ve yet to receive a response from the Bill Russell campaign, although the promotional graphics for the ads on their home page, which feature frames from the ads that use my photo, have been taken down as of this afternoon. I don’t know if this is a coincidence. The YouTube ads remain up as of this evening. I have been told, but haven’t been able to corroborate, that these ads are not merely on YouTube but are actually being broadcast in Western PA.
Public Knowledge has blogged about this tonight.
I had the privilege of speaking with Sherin Siy earlier today and I appreciate Sherwin Siy’s point of view and his critique of both the situation as we understand it, and of my take on the situation.
I tend to agree with the paraphrasing of Lawrence Lessig that it doesn’t make sense to press copyright too far or all the time when it comes to political speech. But, as it was also noted, my particular photo is not essential to the “dialogue” happening here. It doesn’t make sense to abuse the terms that I’ve willingly shared this work under. And I feel I’ve been deprived of the reserved right to grant permission under other terms to use it further than the chosen Creative Commons terms allow.