Erik Moeller wrote:
The question:
Does the owner of the web cam have any copyright claim on
the picture that I have downloaded? I suspect not, because he made no
creative effort to shoot that particular picture. I would be interested
in other opinions.
Before we look at this interesting question -- is the picture actually of
sufficient quality for Wikipedia? Webcams I've seen so far tended to be
blurry and low-res, but maybe that has changed.
For the purposes of this question we have to assume that the quality is
acceptable. If it's not worth putting up, then the copyright question
doesn't matter anyway. Generally I find the quality of the pictures to
be mixed. Some are adequate to illustrate articles about nature or
volcanoes.
Eclecticology