[Wikipedia-l] What would Richard Stallman say?

[Jimmy Wales]

Sean Barrett wrote:
> No matter how many pictures I take of the interesting things I visit,
> I will never take a picture of Bob Keeshan (1927-2004) -- and you will
> not find a free picture of him.

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/K/htmlK/keeshanbob/keeshanbob.htm

That's a pretty typical publicity still, and a guy like Bob Keeshan
must have literally hundreds of these taken over the course of a
lifelong career in show business.  The picture itself has very little
commercial value in and of itself, and I can see no particular reason
why Bob Keeshan's estate, 

or CBS (where his show appeared for 30 years) 

or one of the wire services (who might own photos of him taken
at various public events) 

or some paparazzi with a huge collection

might not want to make just one or two representative images available
under a free license.

We won't know until we try.

Unfortunately, and I'm as guilty of this as any of us, doing work like
this -- approaching people to try to get not just standard permission
but a free license -- will involve stepping outside our comfort zone,
which is "sit and type on the Internet".

--Jimbo