It has to do with license compatibility - Commons has a strict policy that all material be available under a free license that includes commercial use. Would he, his heirs, or his estate object if the photo of the poem was modified to be used in a fast-food ad or for a hate group?
And while en.wiki does allow fair use, having the entirety of the poem is likely a stretch of our policies - so it should be removed from the article too.
-Elias Friedman (elipongo)
------Original Message------ From: Dan Dascalescu Sender: wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org To: English Wikipedia ReplyTo: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] If anyone ever says Wikipedia is too deletionist Sent: Jul 26, 2009 03:52
No, it just pushed my personal "wtf" button
Here's something that pushed my WTF button:
Why was a photograph of a public monument of Martin Niemoeller's poem "First they came", removed from Wikipedia?
Here is a small version of the photograph: http://www.oicu2.com/afc/Martin_Niemoeller.jpg
And here is the article's revision history: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=First_they_came...&action=hist...
I contacted the deletionist at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kameraad_Pjotr#Martin_Niemoeller
Really, honestly, do some Wikipedia admins have nothing better to do than delete photographs of public monuments on grounds of the poems they represent not being in the public domain, while the very article page reproduces the poem in its entirety?
Aside from that, let's have a bit of common sense: does anyone sincerely think that if Martin Niemoeller were alive, he'd object to the image of that monument being on Wikipedia? Does anyone think that any of Niemoeller's heirs would object? WTF?!
-- Dan
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On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 06:23, elipongo@gmail.com wrote:
Would he, his heirs, or his estate object if the photo of the poem was modified to be used in a fast-food ad or for a hate group?
What does this have to do with the poem being engraved verbatim in a public monument?
And while en.wiki does allow fair use, having the entirety of the poem is likely a stretch of our policies - so it should be removed from the article too.
If anyone needed more proof that Wikipedia is too deletionist, here it is.
The damn poem was intended to be distributed as far and wide as possible.
This is similar to the whole "fair use" brouhaha at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Madeleine_close2.jpg#Licence (the photo of Madeleine McCann, a child who's been missing for 2 years) - as if Madeleine's family wouldn't wholeheartedly agree to that picture being plastered on every website in the world.
On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 11:35 PM, Dan Dascalescu < ddascalescu+wikipedia@gmail.com ddascalescu%2Bwikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 06:23, elipongo@gmail.com wrote:
Would he, his heirs, or his estate object if the photo of the poem was
modified to be used in a fast-food ad or for a hate group?
What does this have to do with the poem being engraved verbatim in a public monument?
If someone intends to maintain control over how content is used -- which I think is what Elipongo was getting at -- that content is not freely licensed. If content is not under a free license, I believe we generally consider it "non-free".
Where the clear intent of a photo is to reproduce a given text verbatim, I should think that the original copyright on that text (if any) still applies. Photographing pages of a book doesn't suddenly render the book's copyright moot, for example.
-Luna
Luna wrote:
If someone intends to maintain control over how content is used -- which I think is what Elipongo was getting at -- that content is not freely licensed.
Well, if the control someone intends to control over their content is ironclad, I don't think they'd agree to have it engraved verbatim on a public monument.
Where the clear intent of a photo is to reproduce a given text verbatim, I should think that the original copyright on that text (if any) still applies.
I suppose the way the photo is cropped clouds the argument somewhat. But I think (I hope) we can agree that a freely-licensed photo of the monument as a monument -- that happened to visibly include the text -- would not be objectionable.
While deletionist folks are at removing the poem from Wikipedia, why don't you delete it from Wikiquote as well? Here's the page, for your convenience:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller
Have fun improving Wikipedia.
On Mon, 27 Jul 2009, Dan Dascalescu wrote:
While deletionist folks are at removing the poem from Wikipedia, why don't you delete it from Wikiquote as well? Here's the page, for your convenience:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller
Have fun improving Wikipedia.
In this case I don't think there's much choice. The poem is copyrighted and we're not allowed to use it.
In general, the problem is our free content policy. We're not allowed to use material when permission has been given to Wikipedia, but not to the world. There's no way that Niemoller's heirs would consent to the poem being used to advertise fast food, and they probably wouldn't even let it be used for political causes they disagree with.
On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Ken Arromdeearromdee@rahul.net wrote:
On Mon, 27 Jul 2009, Dan Dascalescu wrote:
While deletionist folks are at removing the poem from Wikipedia, why don't you delete it from Wikiquote as well? Here's the page, for your convenience:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller
Have fun improving Wikipedia.
In this case I don't think there's much choice. The poem is copyrighted and we're not allowed to use it.
In general, the problem is our free content policy. We're not allowed to use material when permission has been given to Wikipedia, but not to the world. There's no way that Niemoller's heirs would consent to the poem being used to advertise fast food, and they probably wouldn't even let it be used for political causes they disagree with.
If you have an article analysing the poem and the various critiques and reactions to it and the (whisper it) popular culture, er, I meant the cultural depictions, then the article is fine. You might even have the whole poem in there, but chopped up and quoted in different parts of the article. That is legitimate non-free use (and fair use). Entire quotation, no.
A picture of the poem is more tricky, because that could be used in a fast food advert (to use your example). The equivalent with text is that the entire WP article could be printed and used in some fashion. But if someone copied the text of the poem from Wikipedia and printed it on a T-shirt, is that the fault of WP's free licence model? Only if they credit WP, in my view. If they don't credit, they could have got the text of the poem from anywhere.
Carcharoth
On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Dan Dascalescu < ddascalescu+wikipedia@gmail.com ddascalescu%2Bwikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 06:23, elipongo@gmail.com wrote:
This is similar to the whole "fair use" brouhaha at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Madeleine_close2.jpg#Licence (the photo of Madeleine McCann, a child who's been missing for 2 years) - as if Madeleine's family wouldn't wholeheartedly agree to that picture being plastered on every website in the world.
I'm sure thats correct and it also makes it easy to resolve - get permission. I think they're fairly accessible through their website, so an editor could simply email them, explain what's needed and ask them to release an image under a compatible license or to provide one that's already been released under a free license. These types of disputes are usually easier and quicker to actually resolve than it is to complain and argue about it.
On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 12:45 PM, Sarah Ewartsarahewart@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Dan Dascalescu < ddascalescu+wikipedia@gmail.com ddascalescu%2Bwikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 06:23, elipongo@gmail.com wrote:
This is similar to the whole "fair use" brouhaha at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Madeleine_close2.jpg#Licence (the photo of Madeleine McCann, a child who's been missing for 2 years) - as if Madeleine's family wouldn't wholeheartedly agree to that picture being plastered on every website in the world.
I can think of several websites they wouldn't want it plastered on.
I'm sure thats correct and it also makes it easy to resolve - get permission. I think they're fairly accessible through their website, so an editor could simply email them, explain what's needed and ask them to release an image under a compatible license or to provide one that's already been released under a free license. These types of disputes are usually easier and quicker to actually resolve than it is to complain and argue about it.
And when someone uses the image in an inappropriate fashion (I know they can do that anyway, without it being on Commons), what then? At a minimum, this image should have the various warnings heavily plastered on it (personality rights or whatever the equivalent is for a missing child), and it should be used with decorum in Wikipedia itself. There are some articles some editors would put it on without realising what offence it might cause.
Carcharoth
On Mon, 27 Jul 2009, Sarah Ewart wrote:
This is similar to the whole "fair use" brouhaha at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Madeleine_close2.jpg#Licence (the photo of Madeleine McCann, a child who's been missing for 2 years) - as if Madeleine's family wouldn't wholeheartedly agree to that picture being plastered on every website in the world.
I'm sure thats correct and it also makes it easy to resolve - get permission.
The kind of permission we require would allow the image to used as a part of, say, toy advertisements or political ads. The family of a disappeared child may not wish to give that sort of permission.