Cc-uk mailing list

[Paul Dixon <paul AT elphin.com>]

(cross posting this from cc-community at the suggestion of others)

I'm new to this list, but I've had a quick scan through the archives to
see if similar questions have been asked. If I'm treading old ground
here please point me in the right direction...

I'm part of a small volunteer team who have put together
http://www.geograph.co.uk, a site collecting CC licenced images for
every square kilometre of the UK. A visitor to our site has just posted
to this list touching on some of the issues I want to discuss, but they
all fall into the topic of "When Licensors Turn Bad!" (cue dramatic music!)

There are two (hypothetical) situations I'm unsure how to deal with
should they arise

1) Licensor requests their attribution be removed from
www.geograph.co.uk website

We want to build up a useful and long-lived archive of geographical
photos, thus we want people to be able to use the photos they see on the
site under the CC licence terms. If a licensor requests their
attribution be removed, what situation does that put a potential
licencee who finds the unattributed image? Has the image reached a "dead
end" or can this licensee exercise the licence but without attribution?

2) Licensor attempts to withdraw licence

While the legal code of the CC licence says it is irrevocable, how can
we deal with a situation where a licencee later claims they never agreed
to the licence terms, i.e. putting a burden on proof onto us, so that we
must show an identifiable individual agreed to the terms.

This is less to do with the licence per se, but I'd be interested to
hear any suggestions. A few that spring to mind:
1) require all photo submitters to make a tiny one-off micropayment by
credit card, so that we have a name and billing address allowing the
website account to be tied to that individual
2) obtain a signed declaration from each submitter that they understand
and accept the licence terms the site presents to them

Note that I'm not talking about a situation of someone uploading images
they don't have the rights to, but someone uploading their own pictures,
agreeing to the licence, but at some later date asserting that as we
can't prove they clicked the big "I Agree" button, the licence is void
and must be revoked.