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  • From: "Andres Guadamuz" <a.guadamuz AT ed.ac.uk>
  • To: <cc-uk AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Cc-uk] Geograph, cc-by-sa-2.0 & Wikimedia
  • Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 15:05:07 +0100

I believe that the issue of contract formation in Creative Commons (and for a lot of other open and free licensing schemes) is really important, as I have already seen people trying to attack the validity of the GPL by using contractual arguments.

I strongly believe that when you are asking a third party to post something, the best practice is to do it through a click-wrap "I agree" button. Nevertheless, I also believe that there is a good legal case to be made for "browse-wrap", where the licence is available through a link.

Regards,

Andres

----- Original Message ----- From: "Lee Kindness" <lkindness AT csl.co.uk>
To: <cc-uk AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2005 10:33 AM
Subject: [Cc-uk] Geograph, cc-by-sa-2.0 & Wikimedia


[ 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
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