[WikiEN-l] "Fair use" images of living people

Mon Dec 11 15:11:35 UTC 2006

Sarah wrote:
> The usual response when I write to a living person to ask for a freely
> licensed image of them is 'Yes of course you have my permission,"
> followed by how much they love Wikipedia. I have to write again
> explaining about our policies, our aim of making freely licensed
> material available, the need not to rule out commercial use etc.
> Sometimes they get it the second time. Often they reply: "I hereby
> license the image for anyone to use with no restrictions, for
> educational purposes." I have to write again and tell them "for
> educational purposes" is a restriction. I usually have to give them
> the precise words they need to say in order to release the image
> entirely.
> 
> By the time this is done, I feel very exploitative of them. I want
> their image on WP, they want it on WP, and the article is more
> informative for having it. So it's win-win. And yet I have to insist
> that they abandon all rights before that win-win situation can be
> acted upon. It feels irrational.

It seems like a partial practical resolution to this difficulty would 
involve something only slightly technical... a special page to which we 
could direct people where they could grant permissions.  A simple wizard.

For example, Sarah uploads the image, along with the email address of 
the person who says "yes of course you have my permission".  This 
triggers an email to them giving them a link to visit to finalize the 
process.  The link is some kind of hash of the email address.

They visit the link.  They see the image in question.  They click a box 
that says "Yes, I own the copyright to this image, and I release it 
under CC BY-SA."  (And that's a link to the CC page about BY-SA.)

This gets recorded in the image history.

It's reasonably secure, if done well, and generates a paper trail of how 
Sarah got the permission.

And it is a lot less frightening to people than a long conversation in 
email.

--Jimbo