[WikiEN-l] Non-commercial only and By Permission Only Images to be

[Mark Gallagher]

G'day Mike,

> I was going to enrich Wikipedia with a whole bunch of my images, but 
> quite frankly, i dont want someone getting rich off my work.
> As such, I was intending to add creative commons no commercial use tags.
> 
> Then I come across this note from you:
> 
> "All images which are for non-commercial only use and by permission only
> 
>> are not acceptable for Wikipedia and _will be deleted_.  We have
>> tolerated them for some time..."
> 
> Well fear not; you wont have to tolerate any of my images.
> 
> I'm going to have to re-evaluate contributing to wikipedia if its based 
> on providing source material for commercial companies.

That's *not* what it's based on.  Please take more care before jumping 
to conclusions in the future; that's a real good way to twist an ankle 
or something.  See below.

> Feel free to explain WHY you have this policy; but I have to say your 

Very well, then.  I shall!  Well, I'll have a bash at it, anyway; IANAL.

It's rather simple, but took me quite a while to work out as well.  All 
Wikipedia content is licenced under the GNU Free Documentation Licence 
(GFDL).  Now, the GFDL is a hellish and byzantine pile of legalistic 
nonsense that enjoys rather a lot of support amongst the geek community, 
such as those who form the core of Wikipedia's contributors.

The GFDL, essentially, means the following:
  a) GFDL-licenced works may be reused by anyone, for any purpose (even
     commercial)
  b) Reusers must allow that portion of their work that relies on your
     image (I think) to be reused similarly.
  c) They must set aside fifteen gazillobytes of space to store the GFDL
     text.

Anything under an explicitly different licence (e.g. Creative Commons, 
or even under Public Domain) is actually /multi-licenced/, meaning that 
reusers can pick and choose what licence they want to follow.  As such, 
non-commercial-use only images can be used as either a) the non-com 
licence, or b) the GFDL.  I imagine people who want to licence their 
images as non-commercial-use-only would be rather upset to discover this 
after the fact, so it's best not to allow the images in the first place.

I don't know why the GFDL always allows commercial use.  Presumably it's 
part of the whole ideological "copyleft is beautiful" bizzo.  I've taken 
great pains to avoid understanding how the Free Software Movement people 
think, and I cherish my ignorance in this regard.  However, it does, and 
Wikipedia is much better off as a result.  There are a number of 
Wikipedia "mirrors" who display regular database dumps (?) of our 
content, licenced under the GFDL.  For instance, answers.com pulls 
together content legally licenced from a number of different sources, 
and collects it all together and displays it with ads.  It donates a 
sizable proportion of its revenue to the Wikimedia Foundation, and helps 
keep us afloat.

> explanation above wasnt very tactful or conducive to goodwill on my part.

Perhaps there's someone with a better way with fancy words than I who 
can rewrite the template.


-- 
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


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