<Farnsworth>Good news, everyone!</Farnsworth>
I contacted Michael Connors from www.morguefile.com, a free image repository, about use of the images on wikipedia. Short answer: Go ahead! Long answer: below...
Happy image-hunting!
Magnus
-------- Original Message --------
Hey mangus, first off for a site like Wikipedia, you can certainly use any image photographed by mconnors free and clear of all terms or by-lines and you have my written permission. The problem is that I don't own these images, I only have permission to redistribute them. Or at least all of the images that I haven't photographed. And I wrote the disclaimer myself, which is why it's so shoddy. (even more so then the coding) You are correct, what I plan to do is have a lawyer provide us with proper terms. My only real concern was preventing someone from downloading the entire collection and finding a morgeufile CD for sale at wal-mart. And I have gotten request from people who want to just rip off as many prints as they can and sell them at every street vendor in NYC, in which case I tell them they should at least stick a calendar on it. If your using the images on a webpage, that's really not the same- they would be really bad prints. The intent of the site was definitely to serve sites not unlike wikipedia, so I think you should run with using the images, I honestly believe the contributors would be tickled to know there work is being used by your site. Give me another 6 months to hire the lawyers and we'll have a solid license. For now you can contact the contributor of a specific photo- I'm sure you won't have any problems getting permission. Thanks a lot for the advice, it is greatly appreciated. mconnors
On 8/25/04 3:43 AM, "Magnus Manske" magnus.manske@web.de wrote:
Hi,
I am writing you on behalf of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://www.wikipedia.org ).
I recently found your great site at http://www.morguefile.com and thought it would be a wonderful source for images on Wikipedia. However, we are a little uncertain about the copyright policy.
You *do* state that the images on your site are free to use, even for commercial projects. The Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, the equivalent of the GPL (think Linux) for written text. The GFDL allows for commercial use as well, no problem so far.
But, you also state on your About page "Although selling prints, selling the images directly or claiming the photo is yours is prohibited." Of course we will appropriately credit the image source, but by "just" using an image of yours on our site, someone might produce single prints and sell them, which is good with the GFDL, but violates your terms of use.
A solution would be for you to co-license all your images under GFDL, which would ensure that the information stays free (as in "free speech", not "free beer":-) but this is of course entirely your decision. IMHO, it would seem to fit the spirit of your site, though.
Anyhow, if you allow us to use some of your images on Wikipedia, please supply us with a short note we can put on the image description below the source citing, similar to "This image is *not* under GFDL. You are free to use it in any way except for selling high-quality versions of it digitally or in print, and as long as you cite the source."
Thank you in advance for your time, and for a great image resource.
Magnus Manske
Magnus Manske wrote:
<Farnsworth>Good news, everyone!</Farnsworth>
I contacted Michael Connors from www.morguefile.com, a free image repository, about use of the images on wikipedia. Short answer: Go ahead! Long answer: below...
Happy image-hunting!
Magnus
-------- Original Message --------
Hey mangus, first off for a site like Wikipedia, you can certainly use any image photographed by mconnors free and clear of all terms or by-lines and you have my written permission. The problem is that I don't own these images, I only have permission to redistribute them. Or at least all of the images that I haven't photographed. And I wrote the disclaimer myself, which is why it's so shoddy. (even more so then the coding) You are correct, what I plan to do is have a lawyer provide us with proper terms. My only real concern was preventing someone from downloading the entire collection and finding a morgeufile CD for sale at wal-mart. And I have gotten request from people who want to just rip off as many prints as they can and sell them at every street vendor in NYC, in which case I tell them they should at least stick a calendar on it. If your using the images on a webpage, that's really not the same- they would be really bad prints. The intent of the site was definitely to serve sites not unlike wikipedia, so I think you should run with using the images, I honestly believe the contributors would be tickled to know there work is being used by your site. Give me another 6 months to hire the lawyers and we'll have a solid license. For now you can contact the contributor of a specific photo- I'm sure you won't have any problems getting permission. Thanks a lot for the advice, it is greatly appreciated. mconnors
Perhaps they would like to GFDL only low-resolution versions of their images, say up to 640px or 800px on the longest edge? They would be no use for prints, as they would be limited to only a few inches across at 150dpi colour resolution. However, they would be more than adequate as encyclopedia illustrations, and would provide high-resolution thumbnails and other small illustrations.
Neil
But this sort of permission is inadequate for us. We need a free license.
Magnus Manske wrote:
<Farnsworth>Good news, everyone!</Farnsworth>
I contacted Michael Connors from www.morguefile.com, a free image repository, about use of the images on wikipedia. Short answer: Go ahead! Long answer: below...
Happy image-hunting!
Magnus
-------- Original Message --------
Hey mangus, first off for a site like Wikipedia, you can certainly use any image photographed by mconnors free and clear of all terms or by-lines and you have my written permission. The problem is that I don't own these images, I only have permission to redistribute them. Or at least all of the images that I haven't photographed. And I wrote the disclaimer myself, which is why it's so shoddy. (even more so then the coding) You are correct, what I plan to do is have a lawyer provide us with proper terms. My only real concern was preventing someone from downloading the entire collection and finding a morgeufile CD for sale at wal-mart. And I have gotten request from people who want to just rip off as many prints as they can and sell them at every street vendor in NYC, in which case I tell them they should at least stick a calendar on it. If your using the images on a webpage, that's really not the same- they would be really bad prints. The intent of the site was definitely to serve sites not unlike wikipedia, so I think you should run with using the images, I honestly believe the contributors would be tickled to know there work is being used by your site. Give me another 6 months to hire the lawyers and we'll have a solid license. For now you can contact the contributor of a specific photo- I'm sure you won't have any problems getting permission. Thanks a lot for the advice, it is greatly appreciated. mconnors
On 8/25/04 3:43 AM, "Magnus Manske" magnus.manske@web.de wrote:
Hi,
I am writing you on behalf of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://www.wikipedia.org ).
I recently found your great site at http://www.morguefile.com and thought it would be a wonderful source for images on Wikipedia. However, we are a little uncertain about the copyright policy.
You *do* state that the images on your site are free to use, even for commercial projects. The Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, the equivalent of the GPL (think Linux) for written text. The GFDL allows for commercial use as well, no problem so far.
But, you also state on your About page "Although selling prints, selling the images directly or claiming the photo is yours is prohibited." Of course we will appropriately credit the image source, but by "just" using an image of yours on our site, someone might produce single prints and sell them, which is good with the GFDL, but violates your terms of use.
A solution would be for you to co-license all your images under GFDL, which would ensure that the information stays free (as in "free speech", not "free beer":-) but this is of course entirely your decision. IMHO, it would seem to fit the spirit of your site, though.
Anyhow, if you allow us to use some of your images on Wikipedia, please supply us with a short note we can put on the image description below the source citing, similar to "This image is *not* under GFDL. You are free to use it in any way except for selling high-quality versions of it digitally or in print, and as long as you cite the source."
Thank you in advance for your time, and for a great image resource.
Magnus Manske
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:59:58 -0700 "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com wrote:
But this sort of permission is inadequate for us. We need a free license.
I don't agree. People should have the possibility to take a Wikipedia article, change it, and publish it either commercially or non-commercially. What we need is that people have the right to do _that_. I have no problems with images that are not allowed to be sold as is, as long as it is allowed to sell a book or encyclopedia that contains those articles.
Andre Engels
On Oct 7, 2004, at 8:35 AM, Andre Engels wrote:
On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:59:58 -0700 "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com wrote:
But this sort of permission is inadequate for us. We need a free license.
I don't agree. People should have the possibility to take a Wikipedia article, change it, and publish it either commercially or non-commercially. What we need is that people have the right to do _that_. I have no problems with images that are not allowed to be sold as is, as long as it is allowed to sell a book or encyclopedia that contains those articles.
Andre Engels _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
At which point the article is no longer open source, because someone else owns part of the source that does not travel with the article, and the owner of the images can precent wikimedia from selling the exact product, or at any future time decide to unilaterally alter the license and require payment.
Proprietary source is a seductive trap, and proprietary vendors will give away for free for a while, and then, once you are locked in - because the open source solutions are killed off - raise prices to monopoly levels. Jimbo is absolutely on the money: don't take the proprietary crack, stay clean and sober on this one.
On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 08:46:23 -0400 Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
At which point the article is no longer open source, because someone else owns part of the source that does not travel with the article, and the owner of the images can precent wikimedia from selling the exact product, or at any future time decide to unilaterally alter the license and require payment.
Proprietary source is a seductive trap, and proprietary vendors will give away for free for a while, and then, once you are locked in - because the open source solutions are killed off - raise prices to monopoly levels. Jimbo is absolutely on the money: don't take the proprietary crack, stay clean and sober on this one.
I don't see the problem here. Either they can alter the license, and then they can do so whether or not they allow certain things, so we should not take ANYTHING from others, or they cannot change the license and then, well, they cannot. I don't see the problem. But if we really go this way, then please START by getting rid of all 'fair use' pictures and all 'allowed for Wikipedia use' pictures. Those have MUCH stricter restrictions on them than "not allowed to sell the picture stand-alone." For that matter, let's get rid of GNU/FDL pictures too, we may not sell those alone either. We may only sell them with the whole license attached...
Andre Engels
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org