A photo I took of my friend Scott and licensed under a Creative Commons license on flickr.com (taken while munching a beaver-ific brunch in the mid-day sun at the Beaver Cafe on Queen West in Toronto) is taking a little trip.

Scott is terrifically photogenic apparently, since the photo has been included on iPods sent to US Senators as part of the iPac "Your Senator needs an iPod" program, which is pretty cool even though I'm Canadian and don't know any Senators (it's one of the 101 photos selected "from the millions" - 11 million licensed similarly to mine, actually - on flickr as part of an image slideshow on the Pod). So Scott, some US senators are going to be looking at your handsome mug. Purty.

See for yourself:

A note on Creative Commons licensing and why I choose to share flexible rights to my images with those who view them: I have a simple belief that the measure of an artist is first and foremost a measure of your own voracity and capacity for free-thought and the expression of it. You don't have to sell a single painting or direct an indie movie to be an artist and basically no one can tell you you're not one, in other words. For me, most of the art I make is derived from the work of others. Acting in a play is a tribute to the author, taking a picture of a friend is a tribute to that friend, and writing about you is, well, if you live in my words then how can I call them truly mine? I like the Creative Commons license idea, because it means I'm acknowledging that you are free to mine my ideas as I have been free to mine yours, and all I ask is that you give me a nod when you take my work and make it your own. I think it's a simple fostering of future art and the spirit of future artists.

So Scott's face emerges on the screen of an iPod during a scroll-by in some Senator's living room in Idaho. Cool.