[WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay

[Durova]

>
> Have you identified any items for sale which are from Wikimedia
> projects and not clearly marked as being in the public domain?
>

Part of the reason for notifying the list was to alert other Wikimedians to
that possibility.

>
> Luckily the ebay items have sufficient metadata that we should be able
> to track them all down.  A big job, but worth doing.
>
> > In his eagerness to construct a strawman, John Vandenberg ignores all
> these
> > factors.  This is one reason why the pool of featured picture
> contributors
> > is small.
>
> You started this thread with "An eBay vendor is exploiting a volunteer
> restoration of the Holocaust." and "Going through their online store
> revealed a dozen more of my restorations
> for sale, all without credit."
>
> Obviously I assumed that you were concerned that you and other
> restoration volunteers had some moral rights being violated.


> My apologies for that assumption.  It was a cop-out for me to say that
> faithful restorers have no moral rights.  I wouldn't go as far as to
> say I was being simpleminded, but I am a bit biased in that regard.
>
> As I am shocked to learn that I am somehow partly responsible for the
> pool of featured picture contributors being so small ... I'd better
> pick up my act and help identify the creators of these works and look
> for cases where moral rights have been violated.
>

A number of our featured picture photographers have been complaining for a
long time.  Recently Wikipedia's most prolific FP photographer retired after
five years' and 164 featured pictures' service, due in part to the reactions
of text editors that range from apathetic to hostile when media contributors
express concerns over exploitation.

One of our featured picture photographers discovered her work in use in a
commercial advertisement, in violation of license and entirely without
credit.  Several months ago I wrote to this list after discovering that my
restoration of US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis was being used
uncredited by *Time* magazine.  To date, no one has joined my letter writing
campaign to contact the magazine.  The magazine still isn't replying to
email.

The Louis Brandeis restoration was 20 hours' labor.  Extensive staining and
chemical damage required careful reconstruction including large portions of
his face.  It is, likewise, shocking to encounter a senior editor--an
arbitrator no less--who calmly presumes such work entails no creative input
and no share of authorship.  If *Time* were to plagiarize a text editor the
matter certainly would be taken seriously.  The Brandeis restoration is also
among the items exploted by this eBay vendor.

Our pool of talented media contributors is not deep.  Wikipedia has exactly
one FP photographer from sub-Saharan Africa, who has expressed similar
complaints.  Much of our best visual content is location-specific:
cityscapes, landmarks, and species can seldom be transmitted via
interlibrary loan.

If it doesn't shock you to see even the Holocaust exploited then I'll shake
my head and move on.  It isn't easy to expand the volunteer pool under these
conditions.  But a new group of high resolution images arrived from the
Tropenmuseum today; when one door closes another one opens.

-Durova