Wikipedia talk:Restricted image licenses

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Contents 1 User pages 2 Openness 3 GFDL compliance already questionable 4 Need a lawyer here

[edit] User pages

It seems the licence as described would effectively prohibit use of the image on User pages or similar. This is currently the case with fair-use images as well, so it isn't a deal-killer, but policing that aspect of fair use images can be a real pain in the ***, and this would expand it. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 05:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The purpose is not to prohibit user page images -- indeed one use of this would be to permit people to put up images of themselves without releasing them under the GFDL. I will re-word to make that clear. i am open to suggestions on improved wording for this or other purpsoes. DES ^(talk) 05:03, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Openness

• I feel that this is a step backwards on the path to openness and freedom that we've committed to with the GFDL and similar. I understand that it helps in getting us content, but I feel the cost is too high, and I think I would not like to see this made policy. --Improv 06:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• I am sorry you feel that way. i think there can be such a thing as excessive openness. I want to be able to contribute contet that can be freely used by anyone for informative purposes -- commercially or not -- without releasign that content for compaltely unrelated purposes, such as use in an advertisement in no wqay related to the original subject. I think many wikipedia contributors would like to be able to do the same. DES ^(talk) 17:04, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I am not personally a devotee of "openness". It's not my thing. However I like contributing to WP because I think it serves a very useful purpose. If I took a brilliant photo (hasn't happened yet, but here's hoping), I would be reluctant to GFDL it. Why? Because I wouldn't (as I understand it) be able to sell it later, since anyone could download it for free, or worse, sell it themselves. I would be in competition against my own photo. I like the idea of being able to restrict the image to just wikipedia-like projects. The wording would need to be tightened before I'd be really keen - it should say something about the image having to be used for a project which sells nothing other than the content itself. With such licensing, it would seem feasible to immediately strip any such images for any derivative project which would not obey the rules. Stevage 14:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] GFDL compliance already questionable

It's my general view that Wikipedia's de facto licence is not GFDL, and therefore the use of even third party GFDL material is questionable. I won't discuss the general issue, which is not specific to images, but this proposal seems to exacerbate a problem that already exists with fair use.

Basically, once a page gets printed, one has a, in GFDL terms, an opaque copy of a derived work based on both the text and the images. This is on the most liberal interpretation, namely that the derived work only comes into existence in the web browser; I would consider that interpretation as an attept to violate the spirit of the GFDL. The consequence is that, that printout can only be supplied to anyone else, if the image is GFDL compatible, and that anyone receiving the printout can scan the image from it and redistribute, possibly modified, versions of the image under the terms of the GFDL. There is nothing to stop someone printing out on a device with better intrinsic resolution than the original image.

For larger distributions, there is also a requirment to provide a web site, or media, providing the complete, self contained, transparent form (I argue that Wikipedia, by not making it self contained, doesn't meet that requirement for the text part, but that is another issue). If one takes the view that the derivation of the composite of text and images is being created by an agent of the user, then the printout is a modified version, and requires its own transparent copy for large distributions. THat means that means that a teacher distributing 100 copies to the students they teach must also provide them with access to a transparent copy, and cannot simply point to Wikipedia's copy (noting caveats about Wikipedia's provision of this function). Thse are basically arguments as to why the argument that Wikipedia doesn't have compound documents has results that, themselves violate the spirit of the GFDL.

The Wikipedia software, itself, generates derivatives of the images, in that it reduces high resolution images to the requested display size, so any image licence needs to permit at least Wikipedia to modify the image.

For users pages, I suspect many users may live to regret giving GFDL permission for text as as well as for images.

--David Woolley 12:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• • Assuming that scaled down images count as derived works, the GFDL specifically permits derived works, and so does the licenese in this proposal, so I don't see the problem there. 17:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
    • By deriving the images specifically for the page, it tends to the position that Wikipedia, rather than the user is creating the derived work which is the composition of text and images, and therefore that all images must be GFDL. Even if you don't accept that argument, it puts a constraint on acceptable licenses, by reguiring that they permit the creation of reduced versions. --David Woolley 10:38, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I do agree that the GFDL is not ideally suited for wikipedia, and a copyleft license explicitly tailored to the nature of a wiki-project would have been a better choice. But I didn't make that choice, and i have no easy way to change it. Indeed all of wikipeid has no easy and legal way to change it that I can see. Gettin all contributors to relicense under soem new license is hardly practical -- some have left the project, some would probably refuse, and we lack contact info for many. Imposing a new license by borad action would be at least a technical violation of the existing license, and IMO would be wrong even if we were sure no one would sue. The only way i can see to do it is to convince the FSF to promulgate GFDL version 3.0W (for wiki) with terms better suited to a wiki project. Since all text under the GFDL can be automatically adapted to any future version of the GFDL, decalring such a wiki-oriented license to be such a future version (probably a fork of the GFDL) would work. But that would require the active participation of the FSF. DES ^(talk) 17:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
    • This is really the general problem, which could take this off track...If you look at my user page, you will notice that I permit WP to relicense for this reason. As I see it, one may be able to argue that someone submitting their own work to WP can see the actual way in which WP provides copyrights and implements the mandatory History section, and they way in which it implements the transparent copy requirement, and therefore argue that they are licensing under the de facto licence. However, a third party owning the copyright of material licensed under the GFDL may well expect strict compliance with the licence. --David Woolley 10:38, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I am not as convinced as you are that the situations you descrive are actual license violations. But in any case, i don't see how adoption of this propose policy makes the situation nay worse. With luck in\t might reduce the number of fair-use images, which are surely much worse problemas for licensing, sicne every re-user must separately consider the fair-use rationale. And I don't see how an image undere the proposed license termns would cause a problem for any normal GFDL re-user. The proposed license quite specifically runs to any such user. a footnote will take care of the needed atribution. If yopu want to suggest a modification of the way in which the present proposal is worded, I am very open to such suggestions, as long as the basic purpose -- to allow a license free fro proper re-uses, but not to unrelated and arguably abusive reuses not envisioned by the contributor -- is retained. DES ^(talk) 17:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Need a lawyer here

The concept of creating a special license that makes a compromise between the owner's desire to commercialise the image and our desire to redistribute it is an interesting concept, but the field of copyright law is very complex. From my amateur knowledge I can't see any reason this is infeasible or dangerous, and I do think we could really use a way of including this type of image, since images of many subjects are inaccessible to the amateur-photographer-Wikipedian.

But we really need a professional lawyer, preferably a copyright lawyer, to weigh in on the argument of how feasible this is and to write the license itself (licenses written by amateurs such as the Artistic License are notoriously dangerous/ineffective). Maybe there is one among the pool of Wikipedians who would help out, but if there isn't I would suggest that the supporters of this policy pool some money together to hire one. Deco 05:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

If we had some consensus that this is a good idea, i can see defering the implemetation until the actual wording was reveiwed by a compentant lawyer. But I see no reason to spend mony on perfectign the wording of a proposal, only to see it ignored or rejected as a matter of principle. DES ^(talk) 22:29, 19 December 2005 (UTC)