Interesting - thanks for sharing this information.

Wikimedia UK is currently starting up a "workplace learning" project, which is going into companies - predominently media companies - and talking to them about issues such as how they can add to and re-use our content. One of the specific questions that we will be answering is how people like EU Observer can reuse Wikimedia Commons photos in a way that is copyright compliant. Note that the BBC, for instance, has a policy of not reusing our content specifically because no one can give them a clear answer to that question.

What we will say will be carefully worded to make sure people don't treat it as legal advice or some kind of permission beyond the terms of the license - important as we're not the copyright owners although some people may think we are! I was thinking of wording it along the lines of "here's the kind of things that other people do" (answers.com for instance).

Have you got any more information about the aggregate/weak vs derivative/viral argument? Am I right to presume the migration from GDFL to CC-BY-SA of wikipedia will strengthen the former argument? Are GDFL images on Commons migrating to CC-BY-SA at the same time?

Thanks for any help you could give.

Regards,

----- "Daniel Kinzler" <daniel@brightbyte.de> wrote:
> From: "Daniel Kinzler" <daniel@brightbyte.de>
> To: "Wikimedia Commons Discussion List" <commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Sunday, 25 October, 2009 09:19:23 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal
> Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Wikimedia as stock photo source
>
> Andrew Turvey schrieb:
> >
> > ----- "Yann Forget" <yann@forget-me.net> wrote:
> >> From: "Yann Forget" <yann@forget-me.net>
> >>
> >> Py mouss wrote:
> >> > The license of the site (http://euobserver.com/static/terms) seems
> > to be
> >> > incompatible with the use of pictures licensed CC-BY-SA, no ?
> >>
> >> What the license of the site has to do with the image ?
> >> The site is certainly not a derivative of the image, so I don't see the
> >> relation.
> >
> > Whilst I'd never pretend to know anything about copyright, that would
> > also be my interpretation. The "SA" in CC-BY-SA refers to derivative
> > works - i.e. where you change, modify, etc the picture itself. Merely
> > putting the CC-BY-SA picture next to text doesn't create a derivative
> > work, so the text would not have to be CC-BY-SA'd
>
> This is a matter of much debate and disagreement, as old as copyleft licenses.
> It's "strong" or "viral" copyleft vs. "weak" or "soft" copyleft. Traditionally,
> the FSF takes teh side of strong copyleft with the GFDL, and the CC crowd tends
> more towards the weak variant, implying that the share-alike requirement does
> not apply to "aggregate" works, only "true" derivatives. To me, that makes more
> sense in practice, even though it may be less desierable in principle. The
> distinction is tricky, however.
>
> -- daniel
>
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