Photo sharing site 500px announced on Friday plans to roll out Creative Commons licensing on the service.
While photos on the site will default to an “all rights reserved” setting, 500px users will now have the ability to select Creative Commons licensing as an option when uploading new photos to the site or editing existing images.
A licensing option already available to photographers on some other photo-sharing sites such as Flickr, Creative Commons allows photographers to designate certain photos as images that they are willing to share with others. Sites such as Mashable, for instance, might use a photo with a Creative Commons license to accompany a news post.
Users will be able to search through photos on the site based on licensing, allowing for quick access to the types of photos they’re looking for.
A longstanding request from 500px users, CEO Oleg Gustol told Mashable that the company decided to add the functionality in order to create the maximum value for the site’s community.
"We want to give our photographers as much flexibility as possible to spread their work and build their profiles and businesses," says Gutsol. “Our move to offer Creative Commons licensing is another way we’re providing additional services and value to meet the needs of our growing community."
Gustol says the move is not only a positive one for current 500px users, but also an incentive for more people to join. “Giving our users the option increases the talent pool we can bring to the platform,” he says.
Creative Commons licensing is available on 500px now.
Recently, 500px was the first company to take advantage of Klout's KloutPass SDK. The company, which lets you buy and sell photographs in addition to sharing them, now offers discounts based on your Klout score. For instance, someone with a Klout score of 90 or above can get a 100% discount on a purchase from the site.