Hi all,
Sven Manguard and I have been working on a little project to try to get state and local government to release their Flickr photostreams under a license that's compatible with Wikimedia Commons. Right now the MA governor's office releases photos under a CC license that does not allow commercial reuse (and so is incompatible with Wikimedia's requirements) and the Boston Mayor's office releases their photos as "All Rights Reserved".
I'd like to send a letter to contacts of ours at the governor's and mayor's offices requesting this change. However, the letter should come from our Wikimedia New England group rather than from any of us individually. I've included a draft below, *please give me your feedback.*
I want to demonstrate that this isn't just one person making this request so I think its important that this letter be signed by as many of our vice presidents as possible using their real names, cities and, if possible job titles. We don't need to put that information online, but we should include it in official correspondence. If you want your name included in this letter, please send me your information privately. I won't send anything out until I get the okay from (at least) a majority of the vice presidents appointed at our April general meeting.
Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you, Gabe
We are an organized group of volunteers supporting Wikipedia outreach in
New England. We are currently in the process of forming a regional chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, the international non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia and its sister projects, including Wiktionary, Wikiquote and Wikinews.
One of our group’s goals is to work with governmental, cultural and educational organizations in New England to expand the public’s access to knowledge and creative works. Much of the cultural heritage of our region is not online or is available only under restrictive copyright licenses that make it difficult for citizens to use, share or build upon these works. If this material becomes available to the public under a less restrictive license, it can be used in myriad ways, such as in Wikipedia articles or student projects.
We would like to meet with you to discuss changing the licensing of the photos your office already posts online on Flickr. Right now, the license terms your office uses prevent us from using these photos on Wikipedia. By making this change, you can help insure that Wikipedia can use high-quality photographs to illustrate articles on public officials, government agencies and programs.
Your office is currently releasing these photos under <>, but we would like you to release the images under a CC-BY or CC-BY-SA license. CC-BY allows anyone, including commercial entities, to distribute the work and to adapt or remix it, under the condition that the work be attributed to the original creator. CC-BY-SA adds an additional condition that anyone who alters your photograph must release their version under the same license. Implementing this change is trivial – it simply requires adjusting a setting on your office’s Flickr account.
I love it. Just two changes. First, we should de-abbreviate the CC licenses, and second, we need a line at the end thanking the official in question.
Sven
On Aug 27, 2012, at 6:13 PM, Gabriel Fishman gabriel.fishman@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
Sven Manguard and I have been working on a little project to try to get state and local government to release their Flickr photostreams under a license that's compatible with Wikimedia Commons. Right now the MA governor's office releases photos under a CC license that does not allow commercial reuse (and so is incompatible with Wikimedia's requirements) and the Boston Mayor's office releases their photos as "All Rights Reserved".
I'd like to send a letter to contacts of ours at the governor's and mayor's offices requesting this change. However, the letter should come from our Wikimedia New England group rather than from any of us individually. I've included a draft below, please give me your feedback.
I want to demonstrate that this isn't just one person making this request so I think its important that this letter be signed by as many of our vice presidents as possible using their real names, cities and, if possible job titles. We don't need to put that information online, but we should include it in official correspondence. If you want your name included in this letter, please send me your information privately. I won't send anything out until I get the okay from (at least) a majority of the vice presidents appointed at our April general meeting.
Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you, Gabe
We are an organized group of volunteers supporting Wikipedia outreach in New England. We are currently in the process of forming a regional chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, the international non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia and its sister projects, including Wiktionary, Wikiquote and Wikinews.
One of our group’s goals is to work with governmental, cultural and educational organizations in New England to expand the public’s access to knowledge and creative works. Much of the cultural heritage of our region is not online or is available only under restrictive copyright licenses that make it difficult for citizens to use, share or build upon these works. If this material becomes available to the public under a less restrictive license, it can be used in myriad ways, such as in Wikipedia articles or student projects.
We would like to meet with you to discuss changing the licensing of the photos your office already posts online on Flickr. Right now, the license terms your office uses prevent us from using these photos on Wikipedia. By making this change, you can help insure that Wikipedia can use high-quality photographs to illustrate articles on public officials, government agencies and programs.
Your office is currently releasing these photos under <>, but we would like you to release the images under a CC-BY or CC-BY-SA license. CC-BY allows anyone, including commercial entities, to distribute the work and to adapt or remix it, under the condition that the work be attributed to the original creator. CC-BY-SA adds an additional condition that anyone who alters your photograph must release their version under the same license. Implementing this change is trivial – it simply requires adjusting a setting on your office’s Flickr account.
Wikimedia-boston mailing list Wikimedia-boston@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-boston
Thanks for doing this. I've my comments inline below.
<quote who="Gabriel Fishman" date="Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 06:13:19PM -0400">
We are an organized group of volunteers supporting Wikipedia outreach in New England.
Great. I would also say that we're editors and contributors to Wikipedia and a series of other wiki projects.
We are currently in the process of forming a regional chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, the international non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia and its sister projects, including Wiktionary, Wikiquote and Wikinews.
I think we can lose this part. They don't need to know that we're not an official organization yet and this probably isn't the time to educate them about all the other WMF projects.
We would like to meet with you to discuss changing the licensing of the photos your office already posts online on Flickr. Right now, the license terms your office uses prevent us from using these photos on Wikipedia.
Great. I think you should just say, "we would like to ask you to change" and then, in the end of the letter, say we'll meet if necessary. We don't want people to brush us off because they don't want a meeting or think we want to take up their time.
By making this change, you can help insure that Wikipedia can use high-quality photographs to illustrate articles on public officials, government agencies and programs.
We should move this sentence to the end. It's weird to ask thm about "this change" before we've told them what it is.
Your office is currently releasing these photos under <>, but we would like you to release the images under a CC-BY or CC-BY-SA license. CC-BY allows anyone, including commercial entities, to distribute the work and to adapt or remix it, under the condition that the work be attributed to the original creator. CC-BY-SA adds an additional condition that anyone who alters your photograph must release their version under the same license. Implementing this change is trivial – it simply requires adjusting a setting on your office’s Flickr account.
Great. Maybe we should emphasize some of the positive benfits of free licensing. Something like, "allowing all citizens and organizations in the commonwealth to use the material you're publish."
Regards, Mako
I know Dominic had some previous correspondence with an archivist for the city where they'd agreed that city works are or should be PD. If that still stands (nag nag nag), it would be good to include it in the letter.
wikimedia-boston@lists.wikimedia.org