From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Fastfission
On 5/21/06, Arwel Parry arwel@cartref.demon.co.uk wrote:
Agreed, which is why we ought to have a licensing option
which states
something like "Technically copyrighted, but copyright holder not reasonably traceable or is indeterminable", and make it clear that this is intended only to be used in the case of private
images which
have not been published (in an effort to prevent it becoming a sinkhole for all the copyrighted photos everyone wants to crib from elsewhere).
I think that's a bad idea. People will start labeling everything that they can't find the author on as "technically copyrighted".
Can anyone explain why fair use would not apply? The uploader doesn't hold the copyright, but the use of an image of themselves to illustrate what is essentially a WP-maintained profile isn't going to be controversial.
When a user labels something as their own creation and that they have licensed it under X-and-Y license, and we have no real reason to really suspect otherwise (and no, I don't think "but they didn't necessarily take the picture of themself" is enough to really suspect otherwise)
I can't see how you can come to this conclusion. If they didn't take the photograph themselves they don't own the copyright. Not without some additional assignment of rights, and making the assumption that this has somehow happened by assuming good faith on the part of the uploader is going too far.
I suggest that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, no such explicit assignment of rights has occurred, but the uploader is quite confident that the photographer is not going to make any fuss.
then I think the risk is legally theirs. I'm also reasonably sure it falls under the safe-harbor provisions of the DMCA, as I understand them.
Could you please explain them?
I note that Jimbo's picture on his user page doesn't use anything along those lines, even though the picture taken by a neighbour is non-controversial and used with permission.
Peter