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

Mon Dec 11 17:43:33 UTC 2006

On 12/11/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> Elvis.

> The template says "Help!  We need a freely licensed image!"
>
> Clicking takes you to a page with some simple instructions...
>
> 1. You must have taken the photo YOURSELF, no uploads of anything else.
>
> 2. You agree to release the photo under GFDL and/or CC BY-SA at a minimum.
>
> 3. You must have taken the photo YOURSELF.  (Yes, we said that already,
> but we want you to know how important it is.)
>

People currently submit images selecting options that are listed as
invalid. I doubt people would follow these instructions either.

> I suspect if we did this for tons of famous people, the photos would
> come pouring in... preserving a bit of history that is currently rotting
> in people's photo albums... and making Wikipedia not just a place where
> people can rehash tired publicity photos under fair use arguments, but a
> place where new culture is formed and born and distributed.
>

3 problems:

First getting outsiders involved in wikipedia is always tricky.
Perhaps this can be delt with through some form of marketing.

Secondly we would be looking towards some of the smaller subsets of
internet users. For a lot of the internet users elvis has been dead
longer than they have been alive. This could to a degree be delt with
by going looking for material rather than expecting it to come to us

Thirdly a lot of people don't have scanners.
-- 
geni