People usually encounter images in Wikipedia, and Wikipedia does not comply with the CC licence requirements either, the way downstream re-users are expected to comply with them. That's a problem.
For example, the CC BY 3.0 licence requires re-users to name the image's author, and much else besides. But when a CC BY 3.0 image is used in Wikipedia, or indeed on a content page in Commons, none of that information is present. All Wikipedia does provide is a link to the image's Commons page.[1] Wikipedia is advertised as the free encyclopedia. This includes people being free to re-use any part of it, even for commercial purposes. So why shouldn't people think that they are allowed to use an image in exactly the same way Wikipedia is using it? If a user sees an image in Wikipedia, it is quite natural for them, given what they have been told, to right-click on it and select copy, without even going to the Commons page with the detailed licence info. But if they do what Wikipedia does, i.e. only providing a link to the source, they can get slapped with a bill for several thousand dollars or euros. One recent press article[2] gave the example of a single mum on benefits who received a demand for 7,500 euro (nearly 8,000 dollars) from a Wikipedian because of two images she had used without giving the required attribution. It doesn't seem fair. [1] Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cercospora_capsici [2] https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Wikipedia-beraet-ueber-Distanzierung-von-Fotolizenz-Abzockern-3630842.html?seite=2 On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 6:37 AM, Gergő Tisza <gti...@gmail.com> wrote: > I can read some German and looked into a similar case the last time this > came up (the thread was called "harald bischoff advertising to make images > "for the wikimedia foundation" and then suing users"). It involved (amongst > others) an amateur news blog which took an image from the Wikipedia article > of some politician and credited it to "Wikipedia" (with link to the image > description page; but no author or license), and was slapped with a ~$1000 > fee. These kind of predatory tactics hurt the reputation and moral standing > of the movement IMO. > > I think asking for damages might be acceptable if > - the reuser is a big organization which has its own copyright lawyers > (e.g. a commercial news publisher) and really should have known better > - the reuser refuses to fix the attribution when asked > - the reuser does not even attempt to indicate that the image is from > elsewhere > but when none of those is the case, threatening to sue violates the spirit > of free content, even if it is in accordance with the fine print of the > license. > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
