...Doesn't even the US have restrictions on journalism?...
...A photograph of an individual in a public place is by definition not private information. What occurs in public is public...
Nobody understands the US.
The "US" is, literally "us", as in "we", as in "we, the people".
The "government has no powers of it's own except the powers it receives from "we the people".
And, "we, the people" put our concerns right up front in the Bill of Rights:
"...congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..."
Period. "...no law..." End of story.
...Perhaps something along the lines of proving that revealing information on a private figure is 'in the public interest'?..
Got that backwards - that's concerning "we the people", the public, having the right private information, not trying to make public information private!
And, what exactly is a "private figure" anyway?
I'd imagine we'll be pretty safe as long as we don't accept seriously substandard photographs of celebrities, if it's similar in appearance and of reasonable quality compared with an official publicity photograph as appears on IMDb, their own website or their agents website. What we don't want is photographs taken on a mobile phone when someone is rushed to the hospital. We want free photos, but we don't want free photos likely to get us into a whole heap of trouble.
On 27/09/2007, Monahon, Peter B. Peter.Monahon@uspto.gov wrote:
...Doesn't even the US have restrictions on journalism?...
...A photograph of an individual in a public place is by definition not private information. What occurs in public is public...
Nobody understands the US.
The "US" is, literally "us", as in "we", as in "we, the people".
The "government has no powers of it's own except the powers it receives from "we the people".
And, "we, the people" put our concerns right up front in the Bill of Rights:
"...congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..."
Period. "...no law..." End of story.
...Perhaps something along the lines of proving that revealing information on a private figure is 'in the public interest'?..
Got that backwards - that's concerning "we the people", the public, having the right private information, not trying to make public information private!
And, what exactly is a "private figure" anyway?
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On 27/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I'd imagine we'll be pretty safe as long as we don't accept seriously substandard photographs of celebrities, if it's similar in appearance and of reasonable quality compared with an official publicity photograph as appears on IMDb, their own website or their agents website. What we don't want is photographs taken on a mobile phone when someone is rushed to the hospital. We want free photos, but we don't want free photos likely to get us into a whole heap of trouble.
Our shots of celebs are, on the whole, not disrespectful in that manner. The worst are just crappy fan snapshots. Perfect example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Schiff
You show that to a publicist and say "The alternative, Mr Anderson, is to take the blue pill and give us a good promo photo under GFDL, CC-by-sa or both." See if they don't get it.
- d.
On 9/27/07, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I'd imagine we'll be pretty safe as long as we don't accept seriously substandard photographs of celebrities
I think you're rather off base with regards to defamation. A shot doesn't have to be great to not be defaming. Average quality, or even below average quality, are fine. There MIGHT be an issue in certain jurisdictions if we deliberately used a picture that makes someone look truly awful or suggests something about the person that is malicious, but that's a hard bar to clear against editorial content.
People who want to use publicity shots on Wikipedia to replace free-content fan-provided shots tend to use this kind of argument, which is inaccurate.
-Matt
On 27/09/2007, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/27/07, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I'd imagine we'll be pretty safe as long as we don't accept seriously substandard photographs of celebrities
I think you're rather off base with regards to defamation. A shot doesn't have to be great to not be defaming. Average quality, or even below average quality, are fine. There MIGHT be an issue in certain jurisdictions if we deliberately used a picture that makes someone look truly awful or suggests something about the person that is malicious, but that's a hard bar to clear against editorial content.
Yeah. I don't think we have any celebrity shots that are actually disrespectful of their subject in that manner, without a relevant editorial reason. (e.g. mug shots)
People who want to use publicity shots on Wikipedia to replace free-content fan-provided shots tend to use this kind of argument, which is inaccurate.
I think that Richard Schiff photo is a strong argument in favour of securing all the good publicity shots we can!
- d.
On 9/27/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I wrote:
People who want to use publicity shots on Wikipedia to replace free-content fan-provided shots tend to use this kind of argument, which is inaccurate.
I think that Richard Schiff photo is a strong argument in favour of securing all the good publicity shots we can!
Indeed. I missed out the part about 'non-free fair use' above. I'm all in favor of people providing their official publicity shots under a free license!
-Matt
I'm heading off on a bit of a tangent here, but if you were a publicist, webmaster or something, would you hand out free images to someone with a silly sounding name and a gmail account claiming to be a Wikipedia editor ?
If we're going to ask for free photos, surely we can get people set up with a Wikipedia or Wikimedia e-mail address so they don't sound like a stalking psychopath.
On 27/09/2007, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/27/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I wrote:
People who want to use publicity shots on Wikipedia to replace free-content fan-provided shots tend to use this kind of argument, which is inaccurate.
I think that Richard Schiff photo is a strong argument in favour of securing all the good publicity shots we can!
Indeed. I missed out the part about 'non-free fair use' above. I'm all in favor of people providing their official publicity shots under a free license!
-Matt
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On 27/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I'm heading off on a bit of a tangent here, but if you were a publicist, webmaster or something, would you hand out free images to someone with a silly sounding name and a gmail account claiming to be a Wikipedia editor ? If we're going to ask for free photos, surely we can get people set up with a Wikipedia or Wikimedia e-mail address so they don't sound like a stalking psychopath.
I believe Raul654, amongst others, has been working on something like this. I'm sure we'll crack it soon :-)
- d.
On 27/09/2007, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed. I missed out the part about 'non-free fair use' above. I'm all in favor of people providing their official publicity shots under a free license!
-Matt
Are you? Good. Care to deal with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Austenlennon#Image:Ruth_langsford.jpg
and a political one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jamiet99uk#Image:Kevan_jones_mp.jpg
official publicity shots tend to have the habit of developing into complex copyright situations and this isn't an area I've had to deal with much in the past.
On 27/09/2007, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 27/09/2007, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed. I missed out the part about 'non-free fair use' above. I'm all in favor of people providing their official publicity shots under a free license!
Are you? Good. Care to deal with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Austenlennon#Image:Ruth_langsford.jpg and a political one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jamiet99uk#Image:Kevan_jones_mp.jpg official publicity shots tend to have the habit of developing into complex copyright situations and this isn't an area I've had to deal with much in the past.
Yeah. The hardest thing is to communicate to them that, to make it free, they have to *lose control* over it. We don't want publicists, politicians and so on feeling like we ripped them off. I think they'd get something of value (a good pic of their charge on Wikipedia) out of releasing a shot to the four winds; but I do want them to understand what they're doing.
- d.