User:Fir0002/NC license proposal summary

Proposal for introduction of NC licensed photos on Wikipedia

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Several editors have proposed reopening the discussion of Wikipedia policy on use of non-commercial licensed images (for example, images licensed CC-NC). The following discussion is being transferred from Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates#Non commercial image license. The discussion there began with photographers who would prefer to license their contributions to WP as non-commercial , but expanded to the use of existing archival and (for example) Flickr NC-licensed images. This discussion attracted interest from such WP notables as Jimbo Wales and Erik Möller.

Impetus

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Having recently invested quite a lot in photographic gear, I am reluctant to give away my images for free. I have no problem with wikipedia or any other non-commercial organization using them, however I would not like commercial institutions to benefit at my expense. I therefore suggest wikipedia adopt a non commercial license such as CC-NC . This will not violate wikis principles of free knowledge and will convince photographers to release higher resolution pictures as well. It might also convince professional photographers to release their work knowing that their work will not be used for commercial means and that they will still be able to make a living.

I don't know if this issue has been discussed before and I know village pump would probably be the place but I wanted some feedback from the photographers before taking it there. --Muhammad(talk) 05:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Practical Considerations

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Potential to tap into new useful content

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It has been suggested (Fir0002, Diliff and others) that semi-professional grade photographers are put off by the potential of their works being exploited commercially. These photographers my contribute their images to Wikipedia if it had an option of NC licensing.

  • I think that providing photographers with this kind of basic protection and choice in how their images get used will strongly benefit the project (and by the project I mean a free online encyclopedia) with semi-pro grade photography. --Fir0002 01:40, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
  • As Fir0002 said, allowing NC (with an allowance for Wikipedia's commercial use in financial emergencies) licenses would encourage better photography, and would not compromise the encylopaedia in any way, as long as distribution was limited to Wikipedia. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

It was further suggested (Pete Tillman, Muhammad Mahdi Karim) that there already exists large amounts of untapped NC content on flickr and other sources.

  • There are a number of historic archives that license their photographs for free noncommercial reuse under the CC-NC licenses -- a good example is the large LA Times photo archive at UCLA. And many photographers at Flickr license their photos as CC-NC. We're missing out on a lot of good, free content by not allowing CC-NC licensed material at Wikipedia. So I'm very pleased to hear the Foundation is open to changing this policy. Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 20:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I have seen some great macro images at Flickr which we could have uploaded to wikipedia if only we had a NC license. --Muhammad(talk) 20:25, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Integration of NC images with GFDL text in articles

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It has been suggested (Dragons Flight, Fletcher and others) that NC images would conflict with the GFDL text and make it impossible for them to coexist in an article.

  • You can only create that combined work if the licenses and associated rights on all the pieces allow you to do so. The FSF position, and I would argue the natural reading of the license, is that creating that new article version is only allowed if all the pre-existing pieces are licensed under the GFDL. Dragons flight (talk) 00:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
In response it was suggested (Fir0002) that the fact Wikipedia articles already contain a variety of individual licenses (from PD to FU) there shouldn't be any issues with incorporating NC
  • If a GFDL article can host a Fair Use image then a GFDL article can host NC images. If a GFDL article can host CC-by-SA content (which is not GFDL) then it can host NC images. If a GFDL article can host PD content (again not GFDL) then it can host NC images. Wikipedia already incorporates many different copyrights into it's articles - one more is not going to make a whole lot of difference. --Fir0002 06:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Note: an email has been sent to User:MGodwin to get a professional opinion

Ideological Considerations

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Wikipedia should be free as in free content

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It has been argued (Fletcher, Kaldari, Eloquence) that Wikipedia is rooted in the free content movement and therefore should be treated as a repository of free content which anyone can use for any purpose (including profit)

  • Wikipedia is free as in speech, not (just) free as in beer -- free in the sense advocated by Stallman et al, where downstream users may use the content for any purpose. Fletcher (talk) 15:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is and always has been a free culture project. Its goal is education, yes, but it is also the creation of free content. Content that anyone can use for anything.Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:35, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia has been a free culture project since it's inception.... "Free license" means doesn't mean free as in "no cost", it means free as in "free speech". Kaldari (talk) 15:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's priorities - encyclopedia or free content

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Largely in response to the above argument, it was contended (Fir0002, Diliff and others) that Wikipedia is primarily a free (as in no cost) encyclopedia and providing high quality encyclopaedic content should be its priority.

  • It seems like WMF is willing to sacrifice the original primary goal of Wikipedia (which is to create the best and most complete free encyclopaedia to the best of my knowledge) in order to stick to the (IMO misguided) ideology of free content for all, regardless of purpose or intent. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
  • if Getty or Reuters suddenly approached WMF and said to Wikipedia that we want to donate all of our images under an NC license to support the creation of a free encyclopedia, wouldn't you want the WMF to accept that offer? Again ultimately I think that question hinges on what Wikipedia's priorities are - being an encyclopedia or being a free content resource. That's no longer making Wikipedia the best it could possibly be in terms of making the best freely (no cost) accessible encyclopedia; that's making Wikipedia as good as it can be subject to a certain ideology. --Fir0002 12:53, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
  • We are interested in freedom, but we still make compromises in the interest of encyclopedic breadth. Dragons flight (talk) 17:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Companies exploiting free content

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Several photographers (Fir0002, Diliff, Muhammad and others) have pointed out they contribute because they believe in free knowledge but the idea of commercial companies exploiting their goodwill is distasteful

  • I contribute because I believe I'm working towards the "sum of human knowledge" goal. Images are crucial to this goal. I'm sorry but the idea that we're pouring our work into a free content resource for others to exploit IMO makes the internet not suck. Knowledge is cool, exploitation is sucky.--Fir0002 07:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
  • It is an issue of 'cosmic fairness' or 'karma' or however you want to describe it: Companies that exist to make a profit should not do so off the back of donations. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 13:15, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
  • All pictures I take, I upload to wikipedia if they have EV and I go out of my way to do this, not to make money bur for the provision of free knowledge.--Muhammad(talk) 20:25, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Prior discussions and present Wikipedia policy for NC-licensed content

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Wikipedia's current policy on material licensed for non-commercial reuse is at Wikipedia:Non-free content. NC-licensed material is presently defined as "non-free".


  • Two things. First, although there is still some debate about it in some quarters, in general CC NC licensing is not thought to prevent hosting on a site with advertising. So it would be possible for Wikipedia to both have NC licensed images and to have advertising. I oppose both, by the way. :-) Second, the best way to understand my position on this is to read Erik Moeller's essay.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
  • ...Many months ago I approached the Foundation about allowing NC images in place of fair use images for subjects where no truly free image exists. That is to say that NC might be allowed, but only when there was no more free alternative was available to show the same subject. Personally, I consider NC to be much clearer for reusers than fair use, since in both cases a commercial reuser may need to remove images, but NC provides a bright line while fair use is fuzzy and ought to be looked at on a case by case basis. The Foundation was open to the idea of using limited NC images at the time, provided that the community backed it. Though there would still be a tension between the desire to encourage people to create truly free content and the desire to have any photo at all of a difficult to obtain subject. Dragons flight (talk) 20:31, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
  • It's been Wikimedia's long-standing position that allowing commercial re-use contributes to its educational mission (the negative impact of stupid commercial uses is outweighed by the positive impact of educational, commercial uses), and that position is unlikely to change. That said, I do believe we need a license that clearly has a "strong copyleft" effect on photographs and similar media, so that when they are used e.g. in newspaper articles, the surrounding articles would need to be copylefted, too. That is consistent with our licensing policy, but neither the GFDL nor CC-BY-SA have really developed clear and unambiguous language to this effect. Creative Commons is open to modifying CC-BY-SA to clarify that copyleft applies on images used in the context of other works (as opposed to only applying to modifications to the image itself). While not helping you with all use cases you're concerned about (it would still allow commercial use in ads, provided the ads are freely licensed), it should certainly limit use in ways which are consistent with our values. This is something we can continue to work on together. Beyond that, I'd encourage the people concerned about commercial use to think about Wikipedia not as their primary publishing platform, but as a way to highlight and promote some of their work, while generating revenue elsewhere.--Eloquence* 01:56, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
[Quote FYI from User:Eloquence: "My name is Erik Möller. I'm a former member of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, and the Foundation's current Deputy Director"]

Kaldari (talk) 16:15, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

...I forgot to include Jimbo's original explanation of the issue from 2005 in my links above. You may want to read that as well for some of the reasoning behind prohibiting NC on Wikipedia. Kaldari (talk) 17:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Original thread of this discussion

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Please note that the entire thread of the original discussion at WT:FPC is substantial, nuanced and well worth reading -- but it's bit intimidating to come to cold! Hence this introduction and summary.