WJhonson writes:

I'm going to disagree with this claim. Are you suggesting that in order to write an article about a living person, a reporter would need their license to do so?

Not at all. I'm pointing out, though, that there are all sorts of potential and actual rights embedded in content, and that the right of publicity (as it's called in the United States) is one of them. If we insisted on a simplistic notion of "freedom" with regard to free content, we'd have to take this legal encumbrance into account.

By submitting, using their true names, they are granting us the license to

use their true names per our terms.

Which free license is being used here with regard to the right to use true names? GFDL? CC-BY-SA?

How could we interpret any of that differently? It seems like a hodge-podge.

Now you're beginning to see the complexity of the issues.

--Mike