[WikiEN-l] Fwd: Dealing with a famous photographer

[Fastfission]

Practical but not-in-the-spirit-of-it answer: Tell him not to license
it as GFDL but to just say that Wikipedia can use it. Then we use it
as fair use and claim to disregard the Wikipedia-only license, knowing
full well that he won't actually sue us for infringement since he
already said we can use it.

Less-practical but more in-the-spirit-of-it answer: Encourage him to
release it under GFDL with the knowledge that nobody who really wants
to make any money off of content is going to to be happy licensing
their entire work under the GFDL and attaching all of its license
agreements.

Completely-impractical but completely-in-the-spirit-of-it answer:
Encourge him to release it freely and not care about how his content
is controlled, because information wants to be free, etc.

As my only slightly sardonic answers might give rise, I don't really
think there's a solution here which is both practical (for him) and in
the spirit of Wikipedia. I don't blame him for not wanting to release
it under a free license. There are some ways to secure his interests
and still take advantage of some of our policy loopholes, but they're
not really in the spirit of the wiki IMO.

FF

On 9/1/06, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am forwarding this message on to the list because JDG appears to be
> having some technical issues preventing the sending of mail to the
> mailing list.
>
> ~Mark Ryan
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Jaydee Gee <JDGee1 at gmail.com>
> Date: 02-Sep-2006 08:30
> Subject: [Fwd: Dealing with a famous photographer]
> To: ultrablue at gmail.com
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Jaydee Gee <JDGee1 at gmail.com>
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 14:41:40 -0400
> Subject: Dealing with a famous photographer
> Hello folks. I (longtime editor "JDG") stopped monitoring Wikipedia
> lists long ago, but I'd like to ask some advice on dealing with a rather
> famous photographer in my attempts to include at least one of his images
> in the English Wikipedia's Bob Dylan article.
>
> To be honest, this photographer's 1966 portrait of Dylan was up there as
> the lead photograph in the article for almost all of `05 and most of
> this year, until the Fair Use crackdown. I'll suppress my opinion of
> that crackdown and go on to my question: given the following
> correspondence, what's the best way to reel the photographer (let's call
> him "Mr. K") in?:
>
> <start correspondence>
>
> "Hello J,
>
> Thanks for your email requesting use of my photograph of Bob Dylan for
> the lead photo in your Wikipedia article about him.  All in all, I'd
> like to go forward but  I'll first need a moment to re-read and fully
> understand the "GNU Free Documentation License" material.  I do not want
> to lose control of this iconic photograph.  Anything you can say about
> that would be helpful.
>
> If we go forward, what is the smallest size file you can use for good
> Internet photo reproduction?  The file size you've picked up was made
> for press use and for my part,is far too large for Internet use.  The
> picture has my copyright notice on the photograph (on Dylan's shoulder)
> and I would do the same for the new file  I would provide.   Where would
> I send it?
>
> Please let me know your deadline for getting this done.  Yes, I would
> like to be linked to my website - what information must I provide?
> .
> Best regards,
> K
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  > Dear Mr. K,
>  >
>  > I'm one of the thousands of drones working on Wikipedia. Some of us
> who have been overseeing the Bob Dylan article
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan) very much want to use one of
> your excellent portraits as the lead photo in the article, but copyright
> concerns have forced us to use a very inferior picture. The portrait we
> wish to use is the one shown here: >
> http://www.cleonproductions.com/flotsam/Bob_Dylan_by_DK.png
>  >
>  > Would you consider giving Wikipedia explicit permission to use it at
> the resolution shown at the above link? We can offer no payment, but we
> can offer a link back to your own website, in addition to the standard
> photo credit by name. As Wikipedia is currently the 17th most used site
> in the world, this link may prove valuable, particularly if you ever try
> selling photographs from your site or from a site linked to your site
>  >
>  > If you choose to give us permission, this particular digital file of
> the photo will then fall under the "GNU Free Documentation License" (see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License),
> with a stipulation that whoever re-uses Wikipedia content must also
> display the photo credit as well as a hypertext link of your choosing.
> Of course, all rights to the original photo, as well as digital
> reproductions at higher resolutions, remain with you.
>  >
>  > Thanks for your time and consideration,
>  >
>  > JDG
>  >
>
> <end correspondence>
>
> Sorry for the length, but you can see it raises some halfway tricky
> questions. I'm not especially knowledgeable about copyright law nor even
> of Wikipedia\media's own policies in this area... So, how would you
> answer Mr. K (with a view, of course, to "getting" his fine photograph)?
>
> Thx,
>
> JDG
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