On 6/27/05, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
As long as copyright warriors are willing to apply common sense the other way -- it is patently obvious that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ssn22vBear1.jpg and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ssn22vBear2.jpg were taken by a Naval officer during the performance of his duty, and I would have little patience if someone were to argue that they ''might'' not be.
Notice I said that if there is doubt we should contact. It's not always obvious, just sometimes. For government sourced images we should always be able to make a contact... Perhaps for your example we couldn't get that specific image confirmed but I'd bet if we asked we could get some other useful ones.
I find the standard "any possible doubt" to be much too paranoid. The standard for convicting someone of premeditated murder is lower than that. If we held ourselves to that standard, we would be an image-free Web site -- ''no'' image's provenance is ''utterly impossible'' for someone to doubt.
It's a reasonable target, if we can choose between an image with substantial doubt and one with little doubt (by a wikipedian) we should choose the wikipedian image. If there is doubt we should also make an attempt to contact the source.
The wikimedia projects already have a sizable and growing base of photographers, illustrators, and musicians. It is completely reasonable to believe that we can meet our own media needs, excluding specific historical works that we wish to comment on.
Are you actually saying that it is "completely reasonable" for a Wikipedian to photograph the wreck of USS ''Thresher''? For a Wikipedian to take a clear picture of a B-2 Spirit in flight? For a Wikipedian to take snapshots of the construction of the International Space Station? There are several myriad subjects beyond "specific historical works that we wish to comment on" for which the public domain is the only source of images.
There are cases, but there are a minority. View images at random, ... we have a great many number of images that anyone can take. The majority of the exceptions are ones which are clearly free, fair use, or could be easily settled with an email.
I did not advocate forbidding external images entirely but rather making a strong position that images made by wikipedians are preferred where we have a choice, and setting some better guidelines for confirming content that isn't cut and dry.