This is a fairly typical case of using non-copyright restrictions ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Non-copyright_restrictions) to try to limit reuse. The practice on Commons is to typically just ignore such restrictions. Surprisingly, it's actually not a topic of much debate or discussion on Commons. I imagine this is because there are much juicier problems in actual copyright law to deal with. The only discussions I know about are:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Miyuki_Hat...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2009Sep#Whit...
Ryan Kaldari
On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 10:25 AM, Stephen LaPorte slaporte@wikimedia.orgwrote:
Public Knowledge has an interesting article about ambiguous usage restrictions appearing on some US government photographs and video:
"The White House is not explicitly claiming copyright on these photos (the license makes that clear), but this type of scary quasi-legal language gets awful close to flirting with a bit of light copyfraud."
http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/what-going-usage-restrictions-media-cong...
I know a number of Wikimedians are interested / activist in this area -- Jean-Frédéric had a great session on this general subject at Wikimania 2012. Do you know any other Wikimedians working on this? Does Commons have any documentation or guidelines on the topic?
-- Stephen LaPorte Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation
*For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.*
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