Cc-uk mailing list

["Lee Kindness" <lkindness AT csl.co.uk>]

[ also posted to cc-community ]

Hi, I would be grateful of your comments and suggestions on the
following discussion (3 pages worth):

http://www.geograph.co.uk/discuss/index.php?&action=vthread&forum=2&topi
c=1118 (I am wangi in the discussion)

To sum things up - http://geograph.co.uk is a UK project which is
attempting to collect a image for each 1km map grid square. When users
submit a photograph they do so (clearly) under a cc-by-sa-2.0 licence. I
became aware of this site from a photo on Wikipedia and have since taken
a number of photos from it and uploaded them to Wikimedia Commons for
use on Wikipedia - as the licence entitles me to do.

I posted a number of articles to the site as a matter of courtesy to
inform people I was using their photo -a  number of submitters on the
site clearly did not understand the terms of the licence and were
unhappy. One user in particular - ronstrutt - is very opposed and things
have escalated to the threat of lawyers stage as you can see by his last
message:

> From: ronstrutt / Ron Strutt
> 
> Now I'm confused, and after a discussion with my learned 
> friend today it all seemed so simple!
> 
> Firstly, the act of submitting an image to www.geograph.co.uk 
> automatically grants a licence to the site to publish the 
> image. This, of course, is common sense. It is arguable, 
> however, that such an automatic licence only applies to the 
> site in its present form, ie non-commercial, 
> non-subscription, etc. So far, so good.
> 
> Secondly, though, the process by which www.geograph.co.uk 
> claims to gain consent to a CC licence is flawed in several 
> ways. One flaw is that it cannot show that I, the copyright 
> owner, clicked on the "I agree" button. Another flaw is that 
> the only reference to the licence text is via a link to 
> another site on which the text could be altered without my 
> knowledge or agreement. Indeed, as was pointed out to me, the 
> link is not even to the licence text itself but to the 
> Commons Deed, on a page which then provides links to at least 
> two different versions of the licence, not including the 
> specific jurisdiction versions.
> 
> It seems there is no doubt that a court would rule such a 
> "licence" to be invalid. There is a simple way round these 
> two particular flaws, but you'll have to pay for your own 
> legal advice to find that out.
> 
> Of course, this discussion took place before I discovered 
> that wangi had tempted fate by posting more of my pictures on 
> Wikipedia. Unfortunately, he did so without giving me credit 
> on neither the thumbnail nor the full-sized image. [Edit to 
> add]It also seems that wangi has copied not just my 
> photographs but also my descriptive text too. From the FAQs here:
> 
> In addition, we require all submitters to adopt a Creative 
> Commons licence on their photographic submissions. While our 
> volunteer photographers keep copyright on their photos, they 
> also grant the use of their photographs in return for 
> attribution... Note: photographs, not text.[/edit]
> 
> So even if the CC licence had been valid he'd have been in 
> breach of it on two counts. He also posted at least one 
> picture endorsed "(c) CC licence terms do not apply. 
> Reproduction subject to terms and conditions obtainable from 
> ron.strutt AT ntlworld.com". It therefore seems that another 
> visit to the solicitor is in order, but this time to obtain 
> an injunction against Wikipedia and Mr Kindness for 
> infringement of copyright!
> 
> Incidentally in looking to complain about the breach of 
> copyright to Wikipedia, I was amazed to discover how many 
> complaints about copyright infringements it receives. It is 
> also clear that many of those who submit material have very 
> little idea of what the law allows and what it does not. I 
> would have thought there is a very good chance of it being 
> shut down before long.

And my reply:

> From: wangi / Lee Kindness
> 
> Ron, might I suggest you contact this site's administrators 
> and request the removal of all your submissions since you are 
> clearly strongly opposed to the licence they are submitted 
> under? Of course it would be good will for them to do so - 
> the CC licence is not revocable.
> 
> At least one of those photos I posted on Wikimedia yesterday 
> was uploaded by yourself after this discussion had started - 
> thus you were fully aware of the licence (and your issues 
> with it) yet still uploaded the photo. I'll say this again - 
> nobody forced you to. Additionally I cannot see "(c) CC licence 
> terms do not apply. Reproduction subject to terms and 
> conditions obtainable from ron.strutt AT ntlworld.com" in any of 
> the photos I uploaded yesterday, and that would be invalid anyway.
> 
> The page of each photo on Wikimedia:
> 
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Deepcut_Barracks.jpg
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Send_Marsh_Manor_House.jpg
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:A303_Near_Forton.jpg
> 
> contains the correct licence information and as I replied to 
> Barry last night there would appear to be a bug in the 
> process Wikipedia uses to access these from Wikimedia and the 
> full description & licence is not being copied across to the 
> description page on Wikipedia - I have already said I will 
> look into this.
> 
> I think you're splitting hairs on the description text, since 
> it is clearly submitted along with the photograph and under 
> the same licence, but feel free to edit the page on Wikimedia 
> to remove the description. However It makes we wonder if 
> you're "going after" Google next - they've got your text too, 
> and thumbnails!
> 
> It doesn't surprise me at all the amount of copyright 
> infringement in Wikipedia - indeed I have been involved (from 
> time to time) in the process to remove this media. You're 
> going to have a hard time with stuff which has a valid 
> licence! Let me just give you a helping hand - don't waste 
> your time with Wikipedia, the images are on Wikimedia. If 
> they are deleted there then the Wikipedia stuff goes 
> automatically. The pages you're after are:
> 
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_guidelines
> 
> Any action you take is only going to hurt Geograph and go 
> against the wishes of the people behind the site who picked 
> the CC licence for a good reason.

Thanks for reading/L