[WikiEN-l] License problems in en.wikipedia.org?

[Justin Cormack]

On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 15:19 +0100, Uwe Brauer wrote:
> Hello
> 
> 
> I just found the following image
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RFJesus.jpg
> 
> which seems to be under a different sort of license, if I am not
> mistaken.
> 
> I would like to include that image, in the corresponding German
> wikipedia article, however so far people hesitated since they believe
> that this license as expressed in the above url, would/could violate
> the GDL. I find it odd that different wikipedias have different
> standards concerning the license politics.
> 
> What can be done? May the simplest solution would be to contact the
> artist (if he/she can be find) and ask for explicit permission.
> 
> Any comments, suggestions?

This is typical of en-w's "flexible" approach to licensing.

Someone is pretending that because it was printed in some
newspapers under terms that we know nothing about somehow this
gives us permission to use it under some unknown terms even though
we dont accept pictures where we are explicitly given permission
any more.

Currently its not worth trying to get rid of these pictures from en
as there are still thousands of more dubious ones (no source for
example). It might get picked up at some point in the fair use
examination.

You cant use it in de: only real free images, sensible policy.

Justinc