[Wikimedia-l] Copyright on Xrays

[Birgitte_sb at yahoo.com]

On Aug 22, 2012, at 8:02 AM, James Heilman <jmh649 at gmail.com> wrote:

> There are two things if the images are not copyrightable:
> 
> 1) If users add images from lets say a textbook. Will someone on commons
> simply delete them and thus it would be a waste of time.
> 
> 2) Do we exposure either ourselves or the WMF to legal problems. And if so
> is this important enough to warrant.
> 
> -

If they are not copyrightable, they will qualify a free content.  However, I would imagine we could obtain better quality images than those from textbooks. There may legal ramifications that have nothing to do with copyright, but (assuming all identifiable information is removed) I cannot think of any myself. Using images that are in anyway identifiable without permission of the person, is of course  bad in numerous ways.  Besides the various privacy laws, it would be in violation of the Nuremberg Code.  And any editors who may be connected, or wish to be connected in the future, to academic research will not want to be associated with such a thing even though it does exactly apply to Wikipedia.

Birgitte SB