[WikiEN-l] Image licenses; a small suggestion

[Ilya N.]

I'd like that:

I believe I put a copyright tag on my userpgae image. That, or GFDL-self
with a note to please not use outside the user namespace.

I, as a 14-year-old, do not want my image spread across anywhere except
where I put it, and I do believe it's illegal anyways without my permission
(which nobody else has and which GFDL-self might in essence be forcing me to
give...)

On 10/10/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Today, I noticed {{Userpage-image}} on WP:TFD - basically a template
> saying "permission granted only to use this on userpages".
>
> Obviously unfree, and should be deleted under existing policy.
> However, it got me thinking about that self-same policy. First, a
> caveat - I am not a lawyer. Especially not a Florida copyright lawyer.
> That said, let us float an idea.
>
> We don't accept non-freely licensed images because they can't be used
> in a commercial (or, in some cases, any other) daughter project, which
> is fine and dandy and a core principle. However, any daughter project
> consists basically of the encyclopedia pages, the images on them, and
> a credit.
>
> Talk pages? Not needed. The scads of Wikipedia namespace
> administrivia? Almost entirely deadweight - what possible print
> version will want to have a copy of the 4,987th ROUGE ADMIN!!!1one!
> complaint on WP:AN? User pages? Helpful for attribution, but keeping
> them can (as we found with our neo-nazi friends) be, uh, prone to
> rather unfortunate misinterpretation. Indeed, I believe we now offer
> dumps filtered of all user-space material to avoid this. We're seeing
> the divide between "front-end" material and "supporting material"
> beginning to be a bit clearer.
>
> All text is GFDL-licensed, and I'm not suggesting changing that, but I
> 'm proposing creating a class of images which are *not intended* for
> redistribution because they're not a part of the encylopedia we're
> producing - in much the same way that we're starting to discourage
> redistribution of some parts of the project to downstream users as,
> basically, not particularly relevant.
>
> So, a suggestion. {{project-image}}. "This image is intended for use
> in developing Wikipedia content. Copyright is, unless explicitly
> stated otherwise, owned and retained by the uploader; it is an
> internal working document, not an encyclopedic image, and not intended
> for use in articles. Permission is granted to create derivative works
> under the conditions of this license." (or something in that general
> vein)
>
> And, using a broad definition of working on the encyclopedia, we have
> the small amount of editing overhead that goes into strengthening a
> working community - not the aim of the wiki, by a long shot, but
> necessary to keep it running well. And, as a part of that, people keep
> adding photos...
>
> Yes, this suggestion was prompted by people not wanting to freely
> license their userpage photos, but I do feel it has potential for use
> in other roles (personally, I have no intention of putting a photo of
> me up there!); a case of "build it and they will come", in a way.
>
> Are there any practical reasons, other than a blanket "we don't accept
> non-reusable images", that this couldn't work? We're already resigned
> to keeping around a large collection of images that are only legally
> valid in certain articles & off-limits to whole namespaces (fair use),
> which knocks down the "but if it's lying around, people will use it"
> argument.
>
> Comments appreciated, though I suspect I'll wake up tomorrow morning
> to find half a dozen "this is insanely unworkable, and here's 46
> reasons why" notes. C'est la vie.
>
> On a related note, though a little less contentious, a tag along the
> lines of {{fairuse-project}} could be handy. I can think of contexts
> where it's legitimate to have a fair-use image as part of a discussion
> on a discussion page ("purposes such as criticism, comment, [or]
> scholarship", remember), but where it wouldn't be appropriate to use
> the image in the main articlespace for one reason or another
> (inappropriateness for the article, or quality issues).
>
> When I was doing image tagging, I found a good few fair use images on
> talk pages - mainly maps, as I recall, presumably because they're hard
> to "quote". However, as it stands now, our Fair Use guidelines are
> solid on "article illustrations only". Comments?
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
> andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
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--
~Ilya N.