IMO, the license/upload problem is not as complicated as everyone makes it out to be.

First of all, the upload form should not be a venue for educating people on copyright and free licenses. As painful as it may be, we need to abandon our maternal instincts and assume that the uploader knows what they're doing and give them the option of learning more if they want to, not spamming the interface with endless explanations and caveats.

Secondly, we need to keep it simple. If the uploader owns the image, give them 3 options:
* CC-zero (public domain)
* CC-by (attribution)
* CC-by-sa (attribution share-alike)
If they don't own the image, expose the rest of the options.

Thirdly, we should let each user set a default upload license for images they own. They get to choose one of the 3 options above in their preferences and that option is then preselected whenever the user starts uploading an image they own.

Fourth, we leave the old crappy upload interface in place at some alternate URL that is linked in microscopic text from the new upload page and we rename it "Advanced Upload".

Fifth, we develop some solid client-side uploading tools so that regular contributors don't have to bother with the web interface at all :)

Ryan Kaldari

On 7/22/10 7:20 PM, Gnangarra wrote:

LIcensing is a legal contract between the author, wikimedia and any reusers we should be ensuring the integrity of the authors choice in the matter especially since we are effectively requiring the author to abandon their rights altogether.

>From what I've just read this is going ahead irreguardless in that case I think that there should be at the very least a barrier/flag before its usable like rollback, file mover and handful of other functions where by an editor requests the function then an admin can assign it to them. That at least gives an opportunity for a review and an attempt at ensuring that the user at least understands what they are doing. It also gives us a time stamp/ip/username which we can point to that the user accepted/acknowledged that they are agreeing to an automated licensing process and accept responsibility for the end result.

A bookmark list of the users common licensing choices would be a useful function to include because very few users only contribute one type of image, personally I have 3 types that I'd use frequently primarily CC-by(own photographs) also PD(self made maps), and PD-Aust(old photographs from Australia)

On 23 July 2010 02:55, Platonides <Platonides@gmail.com> wrote:

Gnangarra wrote:
> Admins have always look unfavourably at deletion request because the
> loader says they didnt intend releasing the work for commercial use or
> thought they were only releasing for educational use or some other
> reason, we can do that because the person made the choice with each and
> every upload not us. Automatically prefilling the upload form with a
> license removes the choice/decision to over come that we would then need
> an alternative check box for the uploader to acknowledge that they
> understand the rights they are releasing.
>
> We need people to freely release media, we need them to do in such away
> that we can be confident that what ever licensing the uploader chooses
> it is them making the choice not us.

What about offering a "bookmark" of licenses? So you could save the 2-3
licenses you tend to use, and still need a click to apply them to the
upload.

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