On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Andrew Turvey <andrewrturvey@googlemail.com
wrote:
I had an interesting conversation with a senior BBC exec on this the other day. Apparently, their lawyers aren't sufficiently comfortable with the copyright violation checking on Wikimedia Commons to be able to rely on free photographs, so they don't use them. Bizarrely they'd rather pay someone for an image, and hence be able to sue them if they had copyright problems, than get it for free.
Same reason I'd rather pay a store for my furniture than get a "great deal" from the back of someone's truck, basically.
Which brings to mind an interesting business proposition.....
:)
Seriously...that'd probably work... Get independent confirmation of copyright status from the individual image contributors, buy a decent liability policy, and guarantee the copyright status of the images in exchange for a fee. Might make certain community members hate you though, a la Mr. MyWikiBiz.