[WikiEN-l] When Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 license makes sense

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 3/14/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
> On 14 Mar 2006, at 10:21, guru brahma wrote:
>
> > Sometime back, there was a discussion about the unusual license of
> > http://www.panopedia.org/index.php/Panopedia. Within the context of
> > Wikipedia, I was wondering if this license makes any sense at all.
> > I think there are some instances where this MAY make sense. For
> > example, images tagged as GFDL-self could be tagged this way. If I
> > make an image, that is, take a photograph of a leader or an actor I
> > adore and do not want it to be photoshopped into some unknown
> > monstrosity, I would be more comfortable in using Creative Commons
> > Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 license. The same would apply to personal
> > images that I upload on to my userpage. The last thing I want to
> > see in my image my moustache disappear or a beard appear ;). Any
> > thoughts which other areas this admittedly over-restrictive license
> > can be used if at all allowed on wikipedia?
>
> Its not clear that you could even resize a CC-ND image under the
> license...
>
I don't see why you wouldn't be allowed to resize using standard html
commands.  There's no permanence to the image created, so it's not a
derivative work.  What would be the fixed "size" of the image anyway? 
Numbers measured in pixels?  I'd say there's no way such a resizing
would be protected.

Anyway, to answer the original question, I think you need to look to
what is the mission of Wikipedia.  "Imagine a world in which every
single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all
human knowledge."  Does including clearly marked CC-ND images hinder
that mission?

I suppose the answer that it does ever so slightly hinder the mission,
because it provides less incentive to create works that people can
legally modify, for instance to draw arrows or make some other sort of
educational marks.  These marks would probably be legal in the United
States under the fair use doctrine, but maybe not elsewhere.

So maybe it's a matter of balance.  If CC-ND were allowed, how many
additional images would be available?  How much more free access to
the sum of all human knowledge would be given?  Maybe the best way to
answer the question would be to run an experiment.  Temporarily allow
such images for a month or so.

Anthony