On 6/4/2011 10:01 AM, Maarten Zeinstra wrote:
User:Jean-Frédéric created this page http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Public_domain_works_guidelines to draft and discuss this idea. I am looking forward to wider discussion on this topic.
It would be nice if there was something "there" on the page.
The largest legal issue with w/ public domain in commons is that the label is frequently used in cases where it doesn't apply. For instance, person X takes some pictures in 2011, uploads them to wikimedia commons and claims they are pd-self.
This doesn't make sense because you can't just say "this is public domain", but rather things are in the public domain for specific reasons: for instance, something produced by a U.S. government employee or something that was produced Y years ago in jursidiction Z.
CC0 exists to simulate "I release this to the public domain" but fewer than 5% as many people use this as use pd-self.
The largest practical issue I run into w/ public domain in commons is a lack of provenance information. Quite a few things are public domain that are scanned from books and I get an inquiry at least every week from someone who needs to know more about the provenance.
For instance, somebody finds an image of an old king or politician and they want to use it in a book. Looking at the image it appears to have been scanned from a book, and given the style of the illustration and the age of the subject it's plausible that the image is really public domain. Two issues turn up: (i) is this really in the public domain? and (ii) can I get a higher quality version of this image? I'd really like to see a citation of the book so that a motivated person can go find the book and rescan the image themselves.
A high fraction of the Europeana usage guidelines would apply to CC-BY-* and even other kinds of images. Even if I bought an image for a few bucks from a stock site, I'd advise people to "show respect for the original work", "show respect for the creator", "be culturally aware" and "protect the reputation of creators and providers" even if the money paid absolves me from the need to "give credit where credit is due" and "preserve marks and notices".