Bryan Tong Minh wrote:
There has been some recent discussion on what exif data we should include in thumbnails. It is for us technically possible and generally people think it is a good idea. Unfortunately, some cameras add 25 KB of exif data to a picture; which is about the size of a thumbnail itself. The exif data has to be stripped before attached to the thumbnail.
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:
Nyet. Plenty of books put the credit at the end. How many books have the credit for the cover art on the cover?
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 wikis the means is mediawiki. Click through is the reasonable manner in this case.
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.
By crediting in a manner that is accepted and practiced in the photographic industry,
We are not part of the photographic industry. More relevant examples would be Encarta and Britannica online. Or just general websites.
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.
We have no way to know what the photographer's wishes are.
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.
Placing that data one click away is not obvious to users and doesn't feel "right" from the perspective of a copyright holder.
Allowing blatent violations of :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles
does not feel right to a wikipedian.
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.
As well as the spaming issue is becomes problematical in cases like this where there are three seperate authors to consider:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ Image:Caisson_lockenglish.svg#Description
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.
- EXIF metadata should be preserved, even on resized images.
Thumbnails can
be recreated, so junking those isn't an issue. But stripping
unrecoverable
information, especially that which may contain author and license information, is a problem when the images are borrowed and used
downstream.
I wish I had a good way to strip just thumbnails, but I don't
currently know
of one. Flickr has the same practice as well, and it's annoying....
This would require someone to rewrite the code. In understand that mediawiki uses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImageMagick to resize images.
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@duncandavidson.com +1 503 784 8747
On 8/25/07, James Duncan Davidson james@duncandavidson.com wrote:
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.
My personal opinion is that it is much more fair to photographers to have a small byline directly under the picture, or at the bottom of the page. Unfortunately that is up to the local community to decide. I believe the Norwegian Wikipedia does credit in a byline.
Bryan
On 8/25/07, Bryan Tong Minh bryan.tongminh@gmail.com wrote:
My personal opinion is that it is much more fair to photographers to have a small byline directly under the picture, or at the bottom of the page. Unfortunately that is up to the local community to decide. I believe the Norwegian Wikipedia does credit in a byline.
And on articles with 100+ images? Images authored by a dozen people, uncommon, but should you get less attribution just because you collaborated? ... And what about all the authors of text? It would be unfair and unreasonable to give the authors of images substantially more prominent credit than the authors of the text. ... and having dozens, if not hundreds, of text authors is not too uncommon.
My personal opinion is that it is much more fair to photographers to have a small byline directly under the picture, or at the bottom of the page. Unfortunately that is up to the local community to decide. I believe the Norwegian Wikipedia does credit in a byline.
Doing that would give the image contributors much more prominant attribution than the text contributors which I don't think think is very fair, especially as frankly many of the pictures are just decoration with the real information being in the text.
On 8/25/07, peter green plugwash@p10link.net wrote:
Doing that would give the image contributors much more prominant attribution than the text contributors which I don't think think is very fair, especially as frankly many of the pictures are just decoration with the real information being in the text.
Set against that is the fact that many of the photographers are not Wikipedia contributors; their images have been brought in from elsewhere, with licenses that require attribution.
-Matt
On 8/26/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Set against that is the fact that many of the photographers are not Wikipedia contributors; their images have been brought in from elsewhere, with licenses that require attribution.
No one has argued that we should not provide attribution.
Nor is the origin of the works relevant on that point: The licenses most Wikimedians use for their photographs have requirements equal to or stricter than the requirements of images that come from the outside.
We provide attribution even when the image licensing doesn't require us to do so.
On 8/25/07, James Duncan Davidson james@duncandavidson.com 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.
Standardisation on meta data is iffy dicey. I've dug copyright notices out of images that more automated scans have missed.
geni wrote:
Nyet. Plenty of books put the credit at the end. How many books have the credit for the cover art on the cover?
It's pretty hard to snag a photo from a book.
Given the mass digitisation projects going on at the moment I think that statement only works in the past tense.
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.
If they thought the image was not subject to any kind of license then they thought they were violating copyright. Not much we can do about that.
As well, Wikipedia isn't a book. It's not a pamphlet either. It's a website.
Commons also serves wikibooks.
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.
Scan a page of a book. Watch the same effect.
By crediting in a manner that is accepted and practiced in the photographic industry,
We are not part of the photographic industry. More relevant examples would be Encarta and Britannica online. Or just general websites.
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.
Sounds identical to wikipedia.
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.
Reasonably sized? 250px is less than an inch of quality printing.
That's what I'm doing here and trying to communicate, as a photographer.
I don't think you considered the full implication of what you wrote. You were getting into moral rights territory.
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.
Wikipedia will not be prepared to accept something it views as threatening it's integrity to promote commmons.
Crediting authors in captions allows for the addition of spam links and vanity as well as other issues. Unless you can show a way to deal with this wikipedia will not change it's position.
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.
We could do that by accepting NC images.However we do not view that as acceptable either.
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.
Credit is on the same page as the image on commons. This is to be expected since it is an image repository.
And since Wikipedia is a shining flagship in the commons,
Yes and no would probably disagree. We get okay but tend towards GNU licenses a lot of the time and have very different objectives.
how it behaves is, in some ways, a standard bearer.
For personal images Flickr has the edge at the moment.
Understand. But I'm not arguing about ownership of articles.
You are arguing about the ownership of the content in them.
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.
It is not invisible.
Um, I don't get what you're getting at.
The byline for that image would be:
"Ayack, Geni and Old Moonraker"
And that is just with three authors. Can get a lot worse fast.
Spam would be where people want to be credited with a link to a website.
We have people who upload their images under names like "Can't sleep, clown will eat me" not ideal for inclusion in an article.
While makeing the credit more obvious is not a problem inline credit is a problem.
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.
There is no disagreement on this point at least within the US.
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.
And I am telling you what code you need to get rewriten (all open source). There are many code changes needed and requested and we are not so rich in coders.
On 8/25/07, James Duncan Davidson james@duncandavidson.com 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.
These people are (copyright) idiots. Without some knowledge of the license status you have no right to use an image you found and didn't create. Full stop.
If people are this ignorant there isn't much we can do to resolve that.
This is the same challenge faced by the big copyright holders when they find their content shared freely on file trading services. If they can't stop the public from ignoring their obligations under copyright law, how can we?
[snip]
The credit is gone. Right click and save an image, the credit was never seen.
For a while we had a function to pop up a notice asking people to left-click for attribution and for a larger version of the image on the first time they right clicked an image.
It was removed because overriding the context menu is considered harmful and it reminds users of "capture context menu to avoid saving" traps. A valid complaint. But without doing that we lose a useful tool.
Do you think that doing that is a good idea?
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.
Attribution on the web is very commonly provided via click-through. It's also very commonly provided buried elsewhere on the site.
Providing attribution on a click-through is functionally equal to providing it on the next page of a book. Where we're not doing so well today is making it clear that the click-through is possible. We plan to improve that where we reasonably can.
You're also in a weak position to complain about attribution. I see a fair amount of Wikipedia content on your blog, even on just the single page that started this discussion, and you've completely failed to name any of the authors of that content.
Why are you trying to hold us to a higher standard than you practice yourself?
[snip]
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
[snip]
We have a huge number of photographers ourselves. You're speaking to many right now by posting on commons-l. We care about having fair and reasonable attribution.
As a photographer I think that you're demanding an unreasonable amount of attribution. Attribution should be readily available. It shouldn't be a blank check to have your name plastered all over the place.
Please don't think that our images are mostly images we're finding on flickr. They aren't.
[snip]
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.
Compromise is fantastic, but it also requires that you recognize when you're asking too much. We are willing to improve, but you need to recognize the challenges we face.
And, again, as a photographer: Please don't claim to speak for me. You don't. You don't speak for all photographers.
[snip]
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.
We are in full conformance with the attribution requirements of CC-By. Under these licenses you have waved the ability to specify the exact character of attribution.
Furthermore under CC-by-*-2.5 and later, with a change to our sites terms of service we could instead provide attribution to ourselves, rather than you, for CC-by images uploaded to us.
"reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or (ii) if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g. a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means,"
We wouldn't do that. But don't claim that we are not in conformance with the Creative Commons Attribution license.
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.
Preserving some EXIF fields is a very reasonable request. It's one which we're already working on and which we would have already were it not for some technical challenges.
First and foremost, I hit send a bit too quick on that last reply. I overstated a few things. I should of waited a bit longer... Please accept my apologies.
In any case, I think the fundamental disagreement is what is considered to be fair attribution. I consider Wikipedia's current practice to be lacking. It can be interpreted to be within the scope of the CC license, but I don't consider it to be fair. You consider it to be fair and acceptable, though indicate it could be done better. I don't think there's any easy resolution.
I have, however, provided my feedback to you and you can do with it as you will.
The one thing I'm concerned about about is the statement that attribution could be changed to Wikipedia with a change to terms of service. I'm puzzled by that. If I'm not the one uploading a CC- licensed image, how have I as an original Author or Licensor designated another party for attribution? If that's true, then the attribution requirement means very much less than what I thought it meant.
James Duncan Davidson james@duncandavidson.com +1 503 784 8747
On Aug 25, 2007, at 15:48 , Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 8/25/07, James Duncan Davidson james@duncandavidson.com 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.
These people are (copyright) idiots. Without some knowledge of the license status you have no right to use an image you found and didn't create. Full stop.
If people are this ignorant there isn't much we can do to resolve that.
This is the same challenge faced by the big copyright holders when they find their content shared freely on file trading services. If they can't stop the public from ignoring their obligations under copyright law, how can we?
[snip]
The credit is gone. Right click and save an image, the credit was never seen.
For a while we had a function to pop up a notice asking people to left-click for attribution and for a larger version of the image on the first time they right clicked an image.
It was removed because overriding the context menu is considered harmful and it reminds users of "capture context menu to avoid saving" traps. A valid complaint. But without doing that we lose a useful tool.
Do you think that doing that is a good idea?
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.
Attribution on the web is very commonly provided via click-through. It's also very commonly provided buried elsewhere on the site.
Providing attribution on a click-through is functionally equal to providing it on the next page of a book. Where we're not doing so well today is making it clear that the click-through is possible. We plan to improve that where we reasonably can.
You're also in a weak position to complain about attribution. I see a fair amount of Wikipedia content on your blog, even on just the single page that started this discussion, and you've completely failed to name any of the authors of that content.
Why are you trying to hold us to a higher standard than you practice yourself?
[snip]
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
[snip]
We have a huge number of photographers ourselves. You're speaking to many right now by posting on commons-l. We care about having fair and reasonable attribution.
As a photographer I think that you're demanding an unreasonable amount of attribution. Attribution should be readily available. It shouldn't be a blank check to have your name plastered all over the place.
Please don't think that our images are mostly images we're finding on flickr. They aren't.
[snip]
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.
Compromise is fantastic, but it also requires that you recognize when you're asking too much. We are willing to improve, but you need to recognize the challenges we face.
And, again, as a photographer: Please don't claim to speak for me. You don't. You don't speak for all photographers.
[snip]
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.
We are in full conformance with the attribution requirements of CC-By. Under these licenses you have waved the ability to specify the exact character of attribution.
Furthermore under CC-by-*-2.5 and later, with a change to our sites terms of service we could instead provide attribution to ourselves, rather than you, for CC-by images uploaded to us.
"reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or (ii) if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g. a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means,"
We wouldn't do that. But don't claim that we are not in conformance with the Creative Commons Attribution license.
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.
Preserving some EXIF fields is a very reasonable request. It's one which we're already working on and which we would have already were it not for some technical challenges.
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
On 8/25/07, James Duncan Davidson james@duncandavidson.com wrote:
In any case, I think the fundamental disagreement is what is considered to be fair attribution. I consider Wikipedia's current practice to be lacking. It can be interpreted to be within the scope of the CC license, but I don't consider it to be fair. You consider it to be fair and acceptable, though indicate it could be done better. I don't think there's any easy resolution.
I personally think that *at the very least* we should make it obvious that credits and licensing can be obtained by clicking on the image, even if we don't put a credit on the page itself. Otherwise, we're engaging in mystery linking. The only thing that's remotely obvious about clicking on a small clickable image is that you might get a bigger version by so doing.
The one thing I'm concerned about about is the statement that attribution could be changed to Wikipedia with a change to terms of service. I'm puzzled by that. If I'm not the one uploading a CC-licensed image, how have I as an original Author or Licensor designated another party for attribution? If that's true, then the attribution requirement means very much less than what I thought it meant.
I think that you or the person stating that is mistaken. Even text contributions to Wikipedia do not require assignment of copyright to Wikimedia/Wikipedia. They are all copyright their original contributors. This definitely goes for images as well.
-Matt
On Aug 25, 2007, at 21:22 , Matthew Brown wrote:
The one thing I'm concerned about about is the statement that attribution could be changed to Wikipedia with a change to terms of service. I'm puzzled by that. If I'm not the one uploading a CC-licensed image, how have I as an original Author or Licensor designated another party for attribution? If that's true, then the attribution requirement means very much less than what I thought it meant.
I think that you or the person stating that is mistaken. Even text contributions to Wikipedia do not require assignment of copyright to Wikimedia/Wikipedia. They are all copyright their original contributors. This definitely goes for images as well.
It was stated by Gregory Maxwell. It didn't match my world view, nor my understanding of the CC, but then I'm prepared to be wrong about a lot of things vis-a-vis my understanding of the CC right about now.
Here's the snip:
On Aug 25, 2007, at 15:48 , Gregory Maxwell wrote:
We are in full conformance with the attribution requirements of CC-By. Under these licenses you have waved the ability to specify the exact character of attribution.
Furthermore under CC-by-*-2.5 and later, with a change to our sites terms of service we could instead provide attribution to ourselves, rather than you, for CC-by images uploaded to us.
"reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or (ii) if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g. a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means,"
We wouldn't do that. But don't claim that we are not in conformance with the Creative Commons Attribution license.
On 8/26/07, James Duncan Davidson james@duncandavidson.com wrote:
On Aug 25, 2007, at 21:22 , Matthew Brown wrote:
I think that you or the person stating that is mistaken. Even text contributions to Wikipedia do not require assignment of copyright to Wikimedia/Wikipedia. They are all copyright their original contributors. This definitely goes for images as well.
The comment was specifically about the terms of CC-By-*>=2.5 licenses. It doesn't have any relationship to what we do: because we'd never put something in our terms of service requiring attribution reassignment.
It was stated by Gregory Maxwell. It didn't match my world view, nor my understanding of the CC, but then I'm prepared to be wrong about a lot of things vis-a-vis my understanding of the CC right about now.
I wasn't speaking specifically of cases where images are uploaded to a new site by a third party. I was making the point to illustrate that the attribution requirements of the license were not as aggressive as you had believed.
I the attribution requirements in case of content under cc-by-*->=2.5 being uploaded by a third party to a site with a terms-of-service attribution override is more complex and and I'd argue that it's made very clear in the license. (Especially considering cases where the third party made a derivative, say a crop, of the original)
I won't bore you with my analysis of the license text
If you'd like to learn more about the "terms of service" part of the CC attribution licenses it's useful to look back to their origin.
The purpose of the introduction of the terms of service clause was to simplify attribution on sites with pages of many authors. They were originally introduced in the "cc-wiki" license, but the cc-wiki license was not successful and the terms were rolled into cc-by-*-2.5.
http://lessig.org/blog/2005/03/code_v20_and_the_ccwiki_licens.html
On 8/25/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/25/07, James Duncan Davidson james@duncandavidson.com 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.
These people are (copyright) idiots. Without some knowledge of the license status you have no right to use an image you found and didn't create. Full stop.
Oh, minor detail, this is true that whenever I publish anything at all with images and/or text, I'm required to know and verify 100% the license of every image, meaning if I don't know the copyright I CAN'T use it.
This makes me wonder, now that you bring it up, exactly how someone is publishing anything thinking it is public domain, because you can't publish anything that is public domain without establishing proof that it's a public domain image. When I took a reader in and it had a Wikipedia public domain image in it, I had to include links to the image (and I knew I had to in advance), and the printer held off until he had personally contacted the photographer.
Maybe it is less strict on the web--after all, many people are their own website publishers, but print publications usually have an additional level in there, still.
There's no printer default for unknown copyright. You either own it, or you have permission or it isn't printable.
Thanks for stating the obvious.
KP