David Gerard wrote:
The other part of the problem is how to use images in
compliance with
the licence. To this end, I started
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reuse a while ago, with the intended
audience being casual readers who know nothing about Wikimedia but who
call up or email asking if they can reuse an image they saw on
Wikipedia. Any improvements anyone can make for accuracy and *CLARITY*
are most welcomed.
I think there is one important issue that precludes widespread
reuse by
responsible people: we make no warranty whatsoever about the correctness
of the licences - and it's to be expected, since the licensing
information is filled in by users on which we have no a priori control.
When people buy photographs from Getty and so on, they not only buy a
photograph but also some kind of insurance that they can safely use
them. If they get sued for copyright infringement, they will say "hey, I
bought this photograph from Getty, who certified that it was legit! sue
THEM!". But do they want to say to a judge "well, we downloaded this
picture from this site, where it was uploaded by somebody called
tiptop35 who said it was in the public domain".