Wikipedia talk:Restricted image licenses

message: It seems the licence as described would effectively prohibit use of the image on User pages or similar.  This is currently the case with fair-use images as well, so it isn't a deal-killer, but policing that aspect of fair use images can be a real pain in the ass, and this would expand it. —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 05:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  User pages 

message: *I feel that this is a step backwards on the path to openness and freedom that we've committed to with the GFDL and similar. I understand that it helps in getting us content, but I feel the cost is too high, and I think I would not like to see this made policy. --Improv 06:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I am not personally a devotee of "openness". It's not my thing. However I like contributing to WP because I think it serves a very useful purpose.  If I took a brilliant photo (hasn't happened yet, but here's hoping), I would be reluctant to GFDL it. Why? Because I wouldn't (as I understand it) be able to sell it later, since anyone could download it for free, or worse, sell it themselves. I would be in competition against my own photo. I like the idea of being able to restrict the image to just wikipedia-like projects. The wording would need to be tightened before I'd be really keen - it should say something about the image having to be used for a project which sells nothing other than the content itself. With such licensing, it would seem feasible to immediately strip any such images for any derivative project which would not obey the rules. Stevage 14:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Openness

message: It's my general view that Wikipedia's de facto licence is not GFDL, and therefore the use of even third party GFDL material is questionable.  I won't discuss the general issue, which is not specific to images, but this proposal seems to exacerbate a problem that already exists with fair use.
Basically, once a page gets printed, one has a, in GFDL terms, an opaque copy of a derived work based on both the text and the images.  This is on the most liberal interpretation, namely that the derived work only comes into existence in the web browser; I would consider that interpretation as an attept to violate the spirit of the GFDL.  The consequence is that, that printout can only be supplied to anyone else, if the image is GFDL compatible, and that anyone receiving the printout can scan the image from it and redistribute, possibly modified, versions of the image under the terms of the GFDL.  There is nothing to stop someone printing out on a device with better intrinsic resolution than the original image.
For larger distributions, there is also a requirment to provide a web site, or media, providing the complete, self contained, transparent form (I argue that Wikipedia, by not making it self contained, doesn't meet that requirement for the text part, but that is another issue).  If one takes the view that the derivation of the composite of text and images is being created by an agent of the user, then the printout is a modified version, and requires its own transparent copy for large distributions.  THat means that means that a teacher distributing 100 copies to the students they teach must also provide them with access to a transparent copy, and cannot simply point to Wikipedia's copy (noting caveats about Wikipedia's provision of this function).  Thse are basically arguments as to why the argument that Wikipedia doesn't have compound documents has results that, themselves violate the spirit of the GFDL.
The Wikipedia software, itself, generates derivatives of the images, in that it reduces high resolution images to the requested display size, so any image licence needs to permit at least Wikipedia to modify the image.
For users pages, I suspect many users may live to regret giving GFDL permission for text as as well as for images.
--David Woolley 12:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  GFDL compliance already questionable 

message: The concept of creating a special license that makes a compromise between the owner's desire to commercialise the image and our desire to redistribute it is an interesting concept, but the field of copyright law is very complex. From my amateur knowledge I can't see any reason this is infeasible or dangerous, and I do think we could really use a way of including this type of image, since images of many subjects are inaccessible to the amateur-photographer-Wikipedian.
But we really need a professional lawyer, preferably a copyright lawyer, to weigh in on the argument of how feasible this is and to write the license itself (licenses written by amateurs such as the Artistic License are notoriously dangerous/ineffective). Maybe there is one among the pool of Wikipedians who would help out, but if there isn't I would suggest that the supporters of this policy pool some money together to hire one. Deco 05:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If we had some consensus that this is a good idea, i can see defering the implemetation until the actual wording was reveiwed by a compentant lawyer. But I see no reason to spend mony on perfectign the wording of a proposal, only to see it ignored or rejected as a matter of principle. DES (talk) 22:29, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need a lawyer here