On Mon, 24 Oct 2005, Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 10/24/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
I totally agree with your view Matt. BTW, are there any copyright issues with the images? I'm on a public machine, so I'm not going to dare checking...
I thought I'd probably feel the same way, after Matt's description, but fortunately I am on a laptop at home, so I was able to check. The pictures seem to be be completely in order.
[snip]
Although I would hesitate to call this pose decent--the model is after all semi-naked and restrained in a manner that would be humiliating and upsetting in other contexts--in my opinion this is an excellent example of how to illustrate sexual bondage play.
There are some interesting opinions expressed in this thread (both in the emails quoted & elsewhere) that touch upon my proposal about encouraging cities and towns to use the GFDL (or CC-BY-2.0) as a pubicity tool.
First, Matt has a point that nudity is unimportant in the image to illustrate a hogtie bondage position: the focus is on how the model is dressed, not on how the model is dressed (or undressed).
Then on the Talk page, Deeceevoice makes the interesting observation that all of these images feature a woman tied up -- why isn't one of the images of a man?
And above, I have quoted Tony Sideway as saying that he finds the pictures informative, & snipped out the part where he states that a prima facia case can be made that they have been offered as properly part of the free use domain (free as in speech, not as beer).
So how do all of these affect my proposal? Let me explain:
1. One point I would like to make that I haven't seen anyone else make is that we ought to be glad that these images have been released under the GFDL: the more material we have in that category -- as long as the subject is in focus & other technical criteria are met -- the healthier our collection of free material becomes. Both we Wikipedians & our users are now free to reuse this image in any way we want, for example to illustrate articles like [[rope]], [[young female]], [[sexual domination]], or [[prisoner]].
2. We are not going to have complete -- or much -- control over images contributed. If we ask famous people for free images like sbc01 has generously granted, we are going to have to be grateful for whatever they give us; that's the nature of being a charity. For example, I would find a picture of Ann Coulter in a short skirt, holding a rifle & a picture of Michael Moore that she has obviously been using for target practice offensive, but if was released under the GFDL then it would replace all of the fair use images we currently are using. (Actually, I would find any picture of Ann Coulter offensive, but I hope I'm not the only person here that would defend the use of any image that is free over others.)
3. If a given image used to illustrate a subject is offensive or otherwise unsatisfactory, then I invite you to find or create a better one. Last I looked the image used to illustrate [[Miniskirt]] is not Featured Picture quality: it fails to capture the edginess or the sexiness that this garment evokes in the popular imagination. However, it does the job by illustrating what a miniskirt looks like -- & it is a free image. If capturing these other qualities of this garment is important, then create the image that captures these qualities & release it under GFDL. Just as I said should be done if a town releases an image that does not accurately represent the town, we are free to do in this instance.
But we should show gratitude that these donations were made.
Geoff