Matthias wrote:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
3. In
order to grant their obvious wish to release these images under a
free license, we add GFDL and CC-BY-SA-2.5 to all of these images
4. We leave {{OwnWork}} and change it into a notice that the license
information below is assumed, and if the author doesn't agree, (s)he
should write a note on the talk page or fix it directly
That's not a bad idea actually. As long as we leave {{OwnWork}}.
With all our bots running around now there should be far fewer cases.
Probably I would just make it {{GFDL}} though. I think it'd be
stretching it to put a CC license, just because we like them. :)
Whereas it's much more likely they're aware that Wikipedia is GFDL.
At the moment {{own work}} actually says it is depreciated to NLD. :|
I rather disagree with this but I understand the need for it. These
OwnWorks just hang around forever...
Brianna
At the German Wikipedia a similar template
({{Bild-wahrscheinlich-GFDL}}, "Image likely to be GFDL") has been
deleted recently because it was not clear in some cases whether the
user really wanted to release it under this license.
de:User:Historiograf stated that one should not simply assume a
license under which a picture is released, especially it a user did
not understand the "legal technicalities".
Germans are strange people. Oh
wait...
I quote what seems to be the central argument:
"Zu behaupten, dass jedem genau die Konsequenzen eines Hochladens
absolut klar sein müssen, ist reine Heuchelei."
roughly
"Claiming that everyone realizes the exact consequences of uploading
images is pure hypocrisy."
I don't agree with that statement. What if someone uploads an image on
commons, chosing "GFDL" as a license, then comes back a year later,
claiming "I didn't know what that meant, I want the image removed"? What
if the image is used on a dozen wikipedias? Do we just delete it? I
think not.
The upload page clearly startes that only images under a free license
(or PD) are acceptable at commons. If someone uploads an image, we have
to assume that (s)he understands that. It's like a contract - if you
change your mind later, too bad for you.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't be as forthcoming as possible in
individual cases; neither does it mean we shouldn't try whatever we can
to find and ask the author directly. *But*, if there's no apparent way
to contact the author, we should either
* delete the image if it looks fishy (less dramatic soon through the
image undeletion function) OR
* put it under a free license, as it was intended by the uploader
(intention proved by uploading the image, thus agreeing to our conditions)
Otherwise, we'd continue presenting an unfree image on our site, which
is the worst option IMHO.
We should keep a note about this, though, in case the original author
comes back one day. (S)he might decide to release it additionally under
another license, for example.
Magnus