On 8/19/07, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:

On 8/19/07, Siebrand Mazeland s.mazeland@xs4all.nl wrote:

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Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 16777216 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 72 bytes) in /home/magnus/public_html/mynoinfo.php on line 21

On: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/mynoinfo.php?user=SieBot

Does SieBot get a cookie now? :)

Sorry, I got it working even for SieBot ;-)

Magnus

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Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

Ow... my total : 1077 out of 1582 (68.1%) ???

But then I also just upload edited versions of existing images, I don't edit the page content... enough of an excuse? o^_^o Admittedly I've added the template to some USS-x images that I cropped captions off of, but after the 200th image that gets a little tedious to do by hand when you're looking at 800 more to go.

I've always thought of {{information}} as little more than a handy tool to keep info organised and to allow quick and easy finding of info. I add it to my original uploads just because I like the clean look and the ease of access to the information; is it going to be more than that in the future? I can see it being something bots go to when looking for info, etc., and it certainly makes sense that we would want it on most images. But is this something we should push more and ensure is added to EVERY image, regardless of how much information is present?

'grats on the new tool, Magnus, I really don't know how you get the time to work on all this stuff! :D

Can someone help me understand the rules regarding the use of articles obtained from Wikipedia on commercial sites?

First, my websites are "nominally commercial." That is, they're educational websites that have been monetized, primarily by adding Google AdSense.

I've used many images with the permission of the owners or creators. I'm also familiar with the rules of public domain - no permission needed. But it appears that there are at least three other classes of images I need to understand:

1) Wikimedia Commons 2) Creative Commons 3) GNU License

My first question regards the effect of each of these on my overall website. I've been warned that if I use images from one or more of these categories on my websites, it may compromise my entire website. In other words, if I use an image protected by the GNU License, then the entire page on which that image appears may lose its copyright status, instead falling under the provisions of GNU?

Is this true? If so, then this post ends here, because I can't afford to compromise my site in that manner.

If, on the other hand, it is safe to use such images without surrendering ownership of an article, page or website, then exactly how do I cite an image's credit? Consider the photo of a mourning dove near the top right corner of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_dove No sources, credits or permissions are listed at all. Only by clicking the image is a visitor directed to a page that lists all that information.

Can I do the same thing - place an image on my website and simply link it to a page with all the legalese? If so, I would probably create a separate web page that includes the following text associated with another image from that same page and link to it:

/Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Zenaida_macroura2.jpg under the terms of the *GNU Free Documentation License http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License*, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GNU_Free_Documentation_License".

/Furthermore, I assume I could leave the links intact. In other words, I could simply link "GNU Free Documentation License" to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License - right?

I've read the rules regarding use of such images, but it's confusing. I need some advice and specific examples to avoid doing anything that's going to get me in trouble.

Thanks!

On 19/08/07, Bryan Tong Minh bryan.tongminh@gmail.com wrote:

First of all, there is http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse. If you still have any questions, feel free to let us know! We are always happy to help, and it will also help us improving the reuse page.

In particular, if any aspect of that page is less than clear, please ask for more detail - that page was written specifically to answer questions like yours.

- d.

On 8/20/07, Florian Straub Flominator@gmx.net wrote:

We should also try to find out, why he didn't find the page in the first place. Maybe we should include it into any image page e.g. via {{information}} ...

What do you think?

My first thought was that since this is a licensing issue, the link should be part of the license templates. But: * The license templates don't stem from a common layout template * There are several user templates * Sometimes, there is only the license category, without any templates

So, I see three possible approaches: 1. We put the link on every "Image:" page, by namespace-sensitive sitenotice or the like 2. We put it in {{Information}} under "Permission" 3. We base all Licensing templates on a single layout template, enforce this across user license templates as well, and fix category-but-no-template images

From a stylistic point of view, I'd prefer #3, but #2 is probably the

easiest sort-term fix.

Magnus

David Gerard wrote:

Bryan Tong Minh wrote:

...

First of all, there is http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse. If you still have any questions, feel free to let us know! We are always happy to help, and it will also help us improving the reuse page.

In particular, if any aspect of that page is less than clear, please ask for more detail - that page was written specifically to answer questions like yours.

I have a question about the Creative Commons ShareAlike licenses. (I thought I had become fairly knowledgeable about copyright since becoming involved in Wikipedia, but maybe not ;-)) Does the ShareAlike requirement apply for *every* reuse of the image, or just for the creation of derivative works? I had always been under the impression that, for example, a website using a CC-SA image would have to be CC-SA itself. Is it the case that the sharing alike would apply only to the image?

Of course, the definition of what exactly constitutes a "derivative work" is another issue entirely, but it seems I may have been mistaken about one of the fundamental principles of the CC licenses. Can someone clear this up for me? (I'd be more than happy to add such a clarification to [[Commons:Reuse]].)

On 8/20/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote: [snip

The licenses are precisely as viral as copyright is. What constitutes a "derivative work" is a matter for the lawyers and courts. If the text is clearly derived from the picture, that'd have to be.

[snip]

I've seen this repeated a lot. It's misinformation, attractive misinformation but misinformation none the less....

When you create a new work which contains my work and you copy and distribute that work you are copying and distributing my copyrighted work along with that whole. Thus, you are subject to the terms and limitations which come along with executing these rights which are reserved under copyright law.

Full stop. We don't need to worry about what a court would consider derivative.

There are extra cases, such as what happens to the whole once you've removed the part I created.... but thats never the question people are asking when this came up.

Now that we've established that you're distributing my copyrighted work and have liabilities and obligations related to that distribution, it would be helpful to know what those are... and thats pretty straight forward:

You can distribute my copyrighted work legally under either of two conditions: (1) Your use constitutes fair use/fair dealing under the law, or (2) you have a license from me that enables you to do so.

If neither of these are the case your distribution is a copyright infringement.

I'm of the impression that this question comes up in cases which are not argued to be fair use. So I'll ignore that one. Free content licenses, obviously, do not limit fair use. If you really have a strong fair use claim: Enjoy.

(2) is the interesting one. You are licensed for redistribution of my copyrighted content. To understand what you are able to do we must consult the text of the license.

Here, the SA terms *appear* to be fairly straightforward. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/legalcode

Were I to argue this in front of a court I'd point out in order to avoid being subject to SA the combined works must be "separate and independent".

The license makes numerous examples of cases where complete distinct articles are aggregated, which is certainly a different use case than a stock photograph being made an integral part of a new document.

"Collective Work" means a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology or encyclopedia, in which the Work in its entirety in unmodified form, along with a number of other contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves,...

The license goes on to specifically state that synchronizing video to music or sound is always derivative under the license. I just do not see how anyone could consider synchronizing still text to still image be materially different.

That said, if you want the copyleft behavior for you images in this sense, I can not currently recommend the Creative Commons ShareAlike licenses.

Lawrence Lessig has stated that "share alike" does not cross the picture frame boundaries. Even if that isn't what the CC licenses say if the director of the CreativeCommons wants that behavior the license can be revised to achieve it in the future.

The same claim, that copyleft ends at the edge of the image, was made about the FDL and that position was easily and firmly rejected by the FSF. Like CC-by-sa I believe the language of the FDL supports this position, and like my argument above... if it does not the license can be revised to reflect the desired behavior.

This shouldn't be considered a bad thing. I certantly don't.

Copyleft exists for several very good reasons.

In the context of images, copyleft is almost completely ineffective if it doesn't expand to cover to cover the entire document when someone combines text with a copylefted image.

This is because the overwhelmingly predominant commercial usage of images is stock photography. The commercial value in a photograph is the ability to use it in a document. The ability to keep touched up version of the image has almost zero commercial value.

This talk of commercial value is very important because the purpose of copyleft is to help expand the pool of free works by using the pool of free works as an incentive to free more works.

For example, I'm a teacher making a guide for my students. I could free my document, or I could choose not to free my document. Even if I have no immediate plans that freeing the document will obstruct I'll often choose not to free the document because *maybe* just *maybe* I'll someday find a way to sell it for lots of money.

Now, if I can choose between paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to Getty images and keeping my work non-free.... or using some copylefted images but being obligated to free my work, the balance shifts and I'll probably be much more willing to free my work.

Not to mention the numerous cases where an authors employer will not allow them to free the work, but is more than willing to accept outside license obligations forcing them to free their work. (This is very common in the software world).

As a photographer myself, a lot of my motivation for freeing my work comes from the fact that my work will help expand the pool of free work. Were it not for this incentive, I'd be far more inclined to maximize my stock photography income by refusing to release my work under liberal licenses.

A single photo of mine released to the world has little value, to me or anyone else.. but if it acts as leverage to free even a single other work then I, and everyone else, profit.

On 8/20/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

Now please write all that as one para for the reuse page :-)

"It is wise to consult an attorney to protect your interests, especially in cases where you produce a new work with licensing terms different from your source material. Your attorney will provide you with the same advice we could have provided you with but you will actually listen to it from him. Furthermore, your attorney will be standing by you in court should the advice bring you into a dispute, while we will not."

...

I honestly don't think we can reduce the complexities into something that people will bother reading without short changing some stake holder.

On 8/21/07, David Blomstrom webmaster@geobop.org wrote:

it's possible that people could begin copying any text I wrote, claiming it is no longer protected by copyright.

I doubt that is the case, although I'm not sure. From what I understand, you have two options in such a case: a) You follow the terms of the license and license your work according to the copyleft license or b) You don't follow the terms of the license and commit copyright infringement. In case b) people can sue you and demand huge amounts of money from you, but that does not immediately mean that your work is no longer protected by copyright.

Is this correct? Or am I just talking nonsense?

Bryan

On 8/21/07, David Blomstrom webmaster@geobop.org wrote: [snip]

It sounds like I could use images licensed under either Creative License or GNU on my political sites with virtually no fear of being sued. However, it's POSSIBLE that doing so could lead to me forfeiting ownership of material I created. In other words, if I write an article about the relationships between Bill Gates and George W. Bush and illustrate it with photos of both men derived from Creative or GNU, then it's possible that people could begin copying any text I wrote, claiming it is no longer protected by copyright.

If I use such images on my educational/commercial websites, it similarly appears very unlikely that anyone would ever sue me - but the possibility exists. It's further possible that I could lose copyright protection of any text and images I created.

[snip]

I think you are misstating a very important point here. Yes, you have understood what "could" happen should you use Wikimedia Commons images in the contexts you describe. But allow me to correct you on one important point. Never ever would you "lose" the copyright protection of your text.

You would retain copyright (ie. ownership, the right to be credited, and some other rights), but allow others to use your work under the conditions listed by the GFDL or CC licences. To make a long and complex story short, such licences as GFDL or CC-BY-SA

It is very important to understand that putting your work under a free licence does not mean that you are "losing" anything. You are "giving up" certain rights, while making sure others are exerted along terms you have chosen and not by a default law.

I think www.answer.com is an example of a website that makes abundant use of Wikipedia content (at least, text, but images, too, I believe). Of course, they probably have an attorney who has worked out an agreement with Wikipedia.

Answers.com (if that is indeed the site you're referring to) is actually a very good example of a "collection". The Wikipedia content is displayed (as are all other contents actually) completely apart from all other content. (ie. with delimitations.). In short, the restrictions discussed in this thread would not apply to the whole page. It thus allows Wikipedia content to coexist on a page with very proprietary content ;-)

On the side, Answers.com has been a partner and benefactor of Wikimedia for the past 3 years.

Delphine

Instead of putting it on the reuse page, please make a new page [[commons:Sharelike implications]] or something. This is all great stuff. please put it on the wiki..........just dump your mails in there as a start. :)

cheers Brianna

On 21/08/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:

On 8/20/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

...

Now please write all that as one para for the reuse page :-)

"It is wise to consult an attorney to protect your interests, especially in cases where you produce a new work with licensing terms different from your source material. Your attorney will provide you with the same advice we could have provided you with but you will actually listen to it from him. Furthermore, your attorney will be standing by you in court should the advice bring you into a dispute, while we will not."

...

I honestly don't think we can reduce the complexities into something that people will bother reading without short changing some stake holder.

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Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

On 8/20/07, Samuli Lintula samuli@samulilintula.net wrote:

I have been under the impression that the case which you present is a Collection. If that is not the case, I will rush to change my BY-SA licenses to just BY.

CC would say it is a collection. FSF might say otherwise. Zero caselaw so who knows?

On 8/19/07, Rama Rama ramaneko@gmail.com wrote:

The licence of your web site will not by jeopardised by the use of a GFDL image: the licence applies only to the image, not to the page itself. The so-called "viral clause" of the GFDL and other Free licence means that derivative of the images will be under the same Free licence as the original; this does not apply for a web page, since it is not a derivative of the image.

Cheers ! -- Rama

A recent statement by the FSF suggest they think otherwise.

"First of all, there is http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse. If you still have any questions, feel free to let us know! We are always happy to help, and it will also help us improving the reuse page."

Thanks, that's a good reference.

Bryan Tong Minh wrote:

On 8/19/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:

...

A recent statement by the FSF suggest they think otherwise.

Which is only a legal opinion, just like Rama's is. There have been no court cases over this, so it is not clear who is right. I would advise you to contact the author of the image. If they give you explicit permission to use the image without licensing your whole site GFDL, you should be fine. That is, imho, the safest option.

Bryan

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Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

My hunch is that, since this issue is a bit vague, it's extremely unlikely that anyone could "steal" my website by claiming it falls under Creative Commons or GNU provisions based on the use of some images. However, I appreciate your suggestion of trying to contact the image's creator directly and requesting explicit permission to use it.

I hope to get some new articles with scattered images from Wikipedia online in a few days. Is it OK if I list some of them on this newslist and solicit feedback about how I'm using them? Most of the images will be automatically linked to larger images, so I'll have to include at least a simple caption (e.g. "Source/Credit"), linked to the proper citation.

Or I could simply link to the appropriate Wikipedia page, where visitors can find a larger image AND the technical/legal description - though that might not work if I have to add my own fine print (e.g. "I modified this image on July 7, 2007.").

I've begun using a database to organize my images, helping me keep track of the creator, permissions, etc.

On another note, does anyone know how Wikipedia creates a page with a .jpg extension that displays not only the image but text? An example is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mourning_Dove_2006.jpg

Thanks for all the tips.

"Gregory Maxwell" gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote on Mon, 20 Aug 2007 01:34:19 -0400:

On 8/19/07, Benjamin Esham bdesham@gmail.com wrote:

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Nice tool, as always, Magnus! IMO it should check for {{Flickr}} too

;-)

...

Along those lines... I've created a new, beta version of the {{Flickr}}

Should we perhaps consider merging Flickr and other information like templates into information? It will make life easier for the tools people, and most of the fields are common between them.

It's utterly miserable to have to deal with 20 ways extract the same data.

Full ack! The Flickr template doesn't brin anything that {{information}} and [[flickrreview}} couldn't provide.

Regards,

Flo