Re: [Commons-l] Making damn sure image attribution is very clear

Bryan Tong Minh wrote: Right. There is some of that metadata that is unimportant in many contexts--sensor dust data and the like come to mind. But, the IPTC style stuff: title, caption, created by, copyright. That's the stuff that one really cares about. And it's the baby that goes out with the bathwater. geni wrote: It's pretty hard to snag a photo from a book. I've tracked down many violations of my CC-licensed photographs to people who "borrowed" them from Wikipedia. WIthout any indication that they are subject to any kind of license, well, people don't know. And that's what they've told me. As well, Wikipedia isn't a book. It's not a pamphlet either. It's a website. And websites can be used in a variety of ways. The content can be repurposed. Print a Wikipedia page. The credit is gone. Archive it as a PDF. The credit is gone. Right click and save an image, the credit was never seen. The medium is the web. You guys know what the heck a mediawiki is. The world that uses it sees web content and _may_ know that they can edit it. I certainly don't care that the medium is a particular kind of software. It is what shows up on my screen. Encarta and Britannica make sure that every piece of content, including photographs, are licensed in a way that is appropriate. They also give credit. You bring up Encarta, here's Bill Clinton's page on Encarta: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564341/Clinton_Bill.html The image provided there is small and obviously leads to more content. Click on it, and you land on a page with a usabel size image. And there's the credit. http://encarta.msn.com/media_461526028_761564341_-1_1/Bill_Clinton.html If you're going to put up reasonably sized images on the article pages, you should give credit there. That's what I'm doing here and trying to communicate, as a photographer. And I'm not your average photographer. I'm one that spent 5 years in the Open Source community and dealing with legal issues. Most photographers just want to bury their heads in the sand because all this new stuff is scary. I'm trying to communicate to you guys how to do things in a way that will increase the participation of photographers in the commons. Obviously, it's from my viewpoint, and you have to take that into account, but this is my intent. When it comes down to it, I have two options right now. I can saw that my use of the CC licenses over the last few years was a blazing mistake and try to find a different way to live in the brave world where copyright is changing. Or I can try to communicate how you guys can meet us half way so that we can get MORE photographers playing ball. I believe in the commons. I want it to grow. But if you're going to put credit in a place where it's invisible and negates the whole intent of the attribution request, then the CC is not a valid tool to use. And since Wikipedia is a shining flagship in the commons, how it behaves is, in some ways, a standard bearer. I may indeed be forced into that position. I hope not. Understand. But I'm not arguing about ownership of articles. I'm talking about my ownership of content that was placed onto your site by a third person. This comes up again and again in the blog comments I've received. My placing of content under a CC license in no way means that I am acting as a contributor to Wikipedia. There's no reason you can/should establish that wikipedian ideas pertain to content that is owned by third parties who are not a party to Wikipedia and bury their credit to the point of invisibility. Um, I don't get what you're getting at. But in the end, it's not my domain. I can establish ownership of my images. I provide them in a way that keeps information along. From my perspective, your exposing internal implementation details as a reason to not do something. Understand that I don't care what tool is used. I'm simply stating that it is problematic when EXIF data is stripped and making a request that important metdata be preserved. James Duncan Davidson james(a)duncandavidson.com +1 503 784 8747