[WikiEN-l] GDFL compliance

[Andrew Turvey]

----- "Unionhawk" <unionhawk.sitemod at gmail.com> wrote: 
> 
> Well, I mean, what difference does it make? I guess it probably should 
> have a link, but, honestly, with the number of Wikipedia images being 
> reused these days, I don't think it would be worth it to attempt to 
> track them all down... 
> - --Unionhawk 

Good challenge! I'd offer the following thoughts: 

1) Advertising 

If everyone using Wikimedia content acknowledged that fact, it would be good advertising for us. It creates good will - people might come and see what other images we have and might donate some images or money themselves. 

2) Contributors 

People who contribute free content don't get much from it and presumably don't really expect to. The one thing they are entitled to is attribution - a core part of our license. If they knew they were going to be attributed on Wikimedia and across the internet, they might be keen to contribute more. I've spoken to a number of freelance news photographers on flickr asking them to release their stuff for WP - knowing they will get wide recognition for their images may increase the success rates on those requests! 

I wouldn't be surprised if using free images becomes widespread among print media - I mean why not? The main concern is copyright, so if we can give them an easy "how to" I'm sure they'd jump at the chance. 

Andrew