Hello Jimmy, i`m just a small writer from the Netherlands, and trying to contribute in a category about fossils, and was always very happy to do so, i have used immages from various sources, almost always products from official institutes, like educational - and governemental, like Geological Survey`s and state museums an d University`s from various countrys and States of Amerika, I`m very surprised to hear that these images, no longer are accepted, just because they are released in to the public for common benefit, excluding the commercial ones, commercial in this optic says: benefit from trade by one person or company, very disappointing, because i don`t have any pictures left, never the less, I realy would appriciate if you could tell me the reason of this "non acception" because i really don`t undersand this, i do understand that pictures have to be released from copyrights, so called copyleft, ok, otherhands i understand that institutes who have putt a lot of energy and probably even more money to get these pictures (as a result of investigations and / or studies, they have released these images for the benefit of the common, and do not ask a payment for these, otherhands they "protect" the product of these hard work, from another making a profit out of it, i think this is judgeable, to release they work and protecting it from "abusing" it, all institutes work like this from Moskow to Mexico, Universitys, researchcenters, and so-on, At the other hand i always understand that wiki projects are a part of a "non - commercial" institute, so by not accepting "non - commercial" releases, I realy don`t understand this, about 120.000 images are to be deleted ?? only in the Netherlands ther are no sustitutes for these pictures because they are very specialised, it will cost a lot to make them oureselves, I realy don`t see any explanation to this not-accepting, unless somehow a part of the wiki concern do have a commercial benefit???? i`m very concerned about this, because a lot of writers like myself - have no images left, or have seen them "disappering" , if there are no images there is nothing to write about................
like i said, i`m just a simple writer in the Netherlands, and teacher, my English is not that well, i hope yoyu can read this, best regards Henk Klaverkamp h.klaverkamp@chello.nl
Wikipedia wants the option to use the encyclopaedia for commercial purposes at some point in the future (for example, selling a printed version, perhaps). By refusing images with non-commercial licenses, we leave our options open.
On 12/6/06, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia wants the option to use the encyclopaedia for commercial purposes at some point in the future (for example, selling a printed version, perhaps). By refusing images with non-commercial licenses, we leave our options open.
Why do we have fair use images then?
Steve
On 12/5/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/6/06, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia wants the option to use the encyclopaedia for commercial purposes at some point in the future (for example, selling a printed version, perhaps). By refusing images with non-commercial licenses, we leave our options open.
Why do we have fair use images then?
Steve
For depicting subjects where the creation of a free image would be impossible or very unlikely. A non-commercial image would be acceptable for these subjects as well, but should have a fair use rationale explaining why it meets Wikipedia's criteria for using unfree images (i.e. why a free image is not a viable alternative).
On 12/6/06, Robth robth1@gmail.com wrote:
For depicting subjects where the creation of a free image would be impossible or very unlikely. A non-commercial image would be acceptable for these subjects as well, but should have a fair use rationale explaining why it meets Wikipedia's criteria for using unfree images (i.e. why a free image is not a viable alternative).
Why do we need to resort to fair use if we have permission to use the image anyway? Surely "permission for non-commercial use" images are preferable to "fair use" images...if nothing else, we can use them at full resolution.
Steve
On 12/6/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Why do we need to resort to fair use if we have permission to use the image anyway? Surely "permission for non-commercial use" images are preferable to "fair use" images...if nothing else, we can use them at full resolution.
Steve
The confusion here originates in the fact that Wikipedia uses the term fair use to refer to two different things. First is the legal concept of fair use. Second is our "fair use policy", which should properly be called our "unfree image policy" or something similar. You are correct that with permission, non-commercial, and no derivatives images have, for our immediate usage, certain advantages over images used only under (legal) fair use. They still, however, require a "fair use rationale"--that is, an explanation of why they are compliant with our standards for using unfree images, which are based not only on immediate legal requirements but also on other concerns, such as the legal concerns of reusers of our content and the goals of the project.
It would be sensible, of course, if we are going to have these two distinct concepts, to separate them out in our nomenclature, but a recent proposal to do this seems to be running into appreciable opposition from folks who support basing our unfree image policy only on immediate legal concerns.
On 12/6/06, Robth robth1@gmail.com wrote:
of fair use. Second is our "fair use policy", which should properly be called our "unfree image policy" or something similar. You are
Ah yes, that would certainly be a lot clearer.
recent proposal to do this seems to be running into appreciable opposition from folks who support basing our unfree image policy only on immediate legal concerns.
Well, I guess I'm mostly sympathetic to that view. I didn't think the creation of free images was a core goal of Wikipedia. Rather, having a ready supply of usable images - free or otherwise - was. I don't feel strongly about it as long as the effort of producing free images doesn't distract us too much.
Steve
On 12/6/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Well, I guess I'm mostly sympathetic to that view. I didn't think the creation of free images was a core goal of Wikipedia. Rather, having a ready supply of usable images - free or otherwise - was. I don't feel strongly about it as long as the effort of producing free images doesn't distract us too much.
::just about falls over::
Yes, the creation of free images is a core goal of Wikipedia. It even says so in the mission statement on wikimediafoundation.org: "The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content..." Images are content, too, and judging by the debate over this I'd say it's considered a fairly important part of it!
There are plenty of reference materials on the web available at no cost to view; what makes Wikipedia's mission different and important is its being free-as-in-speech rather than simply at no charge.
I don't propose that we get rid of *all* unfree or insufficiently-free content; there are cases where our use is legitimately fair. But we do use it far more than we ought to, without sufficient justification, and I think it hurts the goal of "growth, development, and distribution" of truly free content to use it where a replacement could reasonably be found. (I know at least a few people who are not motivated to take their own photos for an article if they see the article has one already; do you check the copyright status of images every time you browse to see if one may be something you ought to replace?)
We don't just use *text* on subjects that are hard to research from accessible sources, even should they give permission to reprint on Wikipedia or noncommercial use only. Why don't we, if our goal really is simply a steady supply of articles? I can only say that it isn't. We quote fairly from works where we need to in order to write about them, but otherwise are strictly free content.
Being free of immediate legal concerns is a bare minimum, but if that's all we're doing I think we're failing at our mission.
-Kat who is, unfortunately, not a very good photographer
Kat Walsh wrote:
-Kat who is, unfortunately, not a very good photographer
I can relate to that! But I'm much better than when I started taking pictures for WP three years ago. For instance, I find that thinking about someone on the other side of the world and in another culture viewing my photo is an aid to composition - how do I get the key information and context into the picture, while cutting out the irrelevant? I've also gotten brazen about studying the unfree pictures to see what it would take to get the same shots.
Stan
On 12/7/06, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
Kat Walsh wrote:
-Kat who is, unfortunately, not a very good photographer
I can relate to that! But I'm much better than when I started taking pictures for WP three years ago. For instance, I find that thinking about someone on the other side of the world and in another culture viewing my photo is an aid to composition - how do I get the key information and context into the picture, while cutting out the irrelevant? I've also gotten brazen about studying the unfree pictures to see what it would take to get the same shots.
It's the same with people's text contributions. You'll start off submitting stuff that's ok, though nothing special, but over time and with practice you'll be turning out high-quality material, through experience and through learning from other people's work.
I agree with Kat's other point. Most of us are sensible enough to know that copying text is bad, but there's a culture that it's ok to do so with images. Cameras are increasingly ubiquitous, and there are plenty of people out there willing to take pictures for the projects, and I really think that culture needs to be changed.
We have [[Wikipedia:Requested pictures]], [[Wikipedia:Photo Matching Service]] and [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Photography]]. These are drastically underused, even though there are people there making excellent contributions. The more they are used, the more people with cameras will be interested in helping and the more pictures we will get. Please everyone, use these resources!
On 12/6/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/6/06, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia wants the option to use the encyclopaedia for commercial purposes at some point in the future (for example, selling a printed version, perhaps). By refusing images with non-commercial licenses, we leave our options open.
Why do we have fair use images then?
If we were being entirely logically consistent, we wouldn't. I have agitated for changing the criterion to something along the lines of "the image must be directly discussed by the article where the article cannot be complete without discussion of the image", which would thereby rule out most images with the exception of those truly notable, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tianasquare.jpg
This would move us further towards our goal of being a *free-libre* encylopedia. Being an encyclopedia is of little use without being free.
On 11/28/06, h.klaverkamp h.klaverkamp@chello.nl wrote:
only in the Netherlands ther are no sustitutes for these pictures because they are very specialised, it will cost a lot to make them oureselves,
We have people around the world to make images. If you provide some details of the type of images involved perhaps something can be done.