[Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l] contents under education/information licenses

Tue Nov 21 19:15:29 UTC 2006

David Monniaux wrote:
> Stan Shebs a écrit :
>   
>> One thing I wonder - if US govt images are PD, then theoretically they 
>> could be misused for advertising or political purposes; but does that 
>> actually happen now? Are we talking about neo-Nazis using the "big blue 
>> marble" Apollo photos in their propaganda, or what?
>>     
>
> No. Where did you fish this neo-Nazi idea? Reality is far more prosaic.
>
> We're talking of Mr Jean Dupont, member of Parliament from a pro-Europe 
> party, waging a reelection campaign on a theme of "with Europe, we go 
> beyond" using photos of ESA rockets, and ESA getting an angry complaint 
> from Dupont's euroskeptic opponent and his party.
> (Apparently, this has happened, and of course they were at least able to 
> say that this happened in violation of their policies. It would be more 
> difficult for them to deal with people acting within their policies.)
>   
Heh, clearly a cultural divide - somebody making that kind of complaint 
in the US would be regarded as a lunatic. We stick to weightier issues, 
like what the word "macaca" might mean. :-)
> Similarly, if a supermarket chain uses photographs of a spacecraft, be 
> sure that there will be complaints that the agency favors such or such 
> company.
>
> The big problem is that, as things are now, if A uses photos from B in 
> an advertisement, it is generally interpreted as B endorsing A.
>   
That's really a big difference in attitude, and helps explain some of 
the confusion in this discussion. In any randomly-chosen US newspaper, 
if you looked through all the ads, chances are you'd find at least one 
using a NASA image, and it wouldn't occur to anyone to think of it as 
endorsement. Those images are simply part of the library of stock 
imagery stitched into the overall design.

Stan