Delphine Ménard wrote:
>Let us not jump to conclusions too fast here. :-)
>What you call "European chauvinism" I will rather call "lack of
>means", "lack of human ressources to write the right contracts with
>the n number of national laws involved in the launching of this or
>that satellite and the building of this or that camera" etc. There are
>reasons for the ESA and other organisations not being able to release
>their pictures under a free license and they go far beyond a manichean
>"good people who release in the public domain what they produce with
>public money" vs "bad people who want to keep stuff for themselves". I
>don't think "pressure" as you put it, is the way to go.
>
>Let me also try to maybe tone down the questions that David was trying
>to get through here and give a different angle.
>
>The question is not that the ESA or these other organisations *do not*
>want to release their pictures for a wider use. As a matter of fact,
>it is the ESA who came to us (Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia
>France) and asked us for advice on how to go about this, and how they
>could make their pictures (more) freely available. However, they have
>some conditions.
>
>Some of our licenses (the one I use, for example) also add conditions
>(CC-BY-SA - share alike is a pretty drastic condition, when you think
>about it).
>
>One of their condition is that those images can't be used for
>political propaganda, for example.
>
>Now let me try and shift the debate a little here. Let us consider
>that the ESA, or whatever other organisation, comes up with a licence
>of their own. Let us imagine they allow free use of their images (in
>our free sense) *except* for political propaganda. Would that in any
>way be an acceptable thing to go by? Or is that definitely something
>we can't accept? It's a real question, I have no real opinion about
>this.
>
>
>Delphine
>
>
I don't know how completely to answer this, except to note how NASA
images have been used in the past, and frankly for considerable benefit
for just about everybody who uses them. The famous "Earthrise" photo
that was taken during the Apollo 8 flight in particular has been used
explicitly for political purposes. (see [[w:Earthrise]]). I don't
think that these political purposes to which the photo has been used
have been shown as an endorsement by NASA of those political groups that
use those photos... indeed it is exactly the opposite. Because NASA has
been explicitly apolitical in the use of this and other photos, it has
been used by a very wide range of groups from the boy scouts, religious
groups, environmental activists, political campaigns, space advocacy
lobbies, science fiction conventions, and astronomical observatories.
Political restrictions would make it available to almost none of these
groups and would have a huge impact on its distribution.
Another very good example of how some creative useage of "public domain"
photos is in the form of the also quite famous [[w:Image:Buzz salutes
the U.S. Flag.jpg]] that was later used by none other than MTV for
promotions of their television channel. It has also been used in other
contexts as well, where the U.S. flag has been photoshopped to other
images. Clearly this is a case where having public domain content can
be used creatively in manners that having copyright restrictions would
not normally allow such use. Especially if you are manipulating images
for artistic purposes, it is essential to have some content that is in
the public domain to avoid having significant licensing problems and
relying on "fair use" as a very poor substitute.
It should be of note that the only image that NASA has a real problem
with people using is the official logos of NASA, especially if such
usage implies endorsement.
How this relates to the ESA, I am not entirely sure. One huge problem
the ESA faces is that they have a committee of many nations to help
decide policy on this issue, each of which has their own unique cultural
background. In contrast, the USA has had a long tradition of putting
all government publications into the public domain, so it was a
no-brainer when NASA decided to do the same with the space pictures. It
wasn't even breaking tradition to do so.
I do hope that the WMF encourages the widespread use of GFDL-compatable
images and multi-media content, more than just simply for compatability
with Wikipedia. It also allows ordinary people to have access to rich
media archives that would otherwise be locked up, or encourage
widespread "IP pirarcy".
It should be of note that those who choose to produce quality artistic
content (both text as well as multi-media content) under copyright and
propritary licensing arrangements are actually helped by having a large
quantity of public domain and free content available. It forces those
of us who do so to prove that what we are making is of the highest
quality and does something original and unique. In the long run, public
domain and free content will make a much richer artistic environment.
--
Robert Scott Horning
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>Let us not jump to conclusions too fast here. :-)
>What you call "European chauvinism" I will rather call "lack of
>means", "lack of human ressources to write the right contracts with
>the n number of national laws involved in the launching of this or
>that satellite and the building of this or that camera" etc. There are
>reasons for the ESA and other organisations not being able to release
>their pictures under a free license and they go far beyond a manichean
>"good people who release in the public domain what they produce with
>public money" vs "bad people who want to keep stuff for themselves". I
>don't think "pressure" as you put it, is the way to go.
>
>Let me also try to maybe tone down the questions that David was trying
>to get through here and give a different angle.
>
>The question is not that the ESA or these other organisations *do not*
>want to release their pictures for a wider use. As a matter of fact,
>it is the ESA who came to us (Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia
>France) and asked us for advice on how to go about this, and how they
>could make their pictures (more) freely available. However, they have
>some conditions.
>
>Some of our licenses (the one I use, for example) also add conditions
>(CC-BY-SA - share alike is a pretty drastic condition, when you think
>about it).
>
>One of their condition is that those images can't be used for
>political propaganda, for example.
>
>Now let me try and shift the debate a little here. Let us consider
>that the ESA, or whatever other organisation, comes up with a licence
>of their own. Let us imagine they allow free use of their images (in
>our free sense) *except* for political propaganda. Would that in any
>way be an acceptable thing to go by? Or is that definitely something
>we can't accept? It's a real question, I have no real opinion about
>this.
>
>
>Delphine
>
>
I don't know how completely to answer this, except to note how NASA
images have been used in the past, and frankly for considerable benefit
for just about everybody who uses them. The famous "Earthrise" photo
that was taken during the Apollo 8 flight in particular has been used
explicitly for political purposes. (see [[w:Earthrise]]). I don't
think that these political purposes to which the photo has been used
have been shown as an endorsement by NASA of those political groups that
use those photos... indeed it is exactly the opposite. Because NASA has
been explicitly apolitical in the use of this and other photos, it has
been used by a very wide range of groups from the boy scouts, religious
groups, environmental activists, political campaigns, space advocacy
lobbies, science fiction conventions, and astronomical observatories.
Political restrictions would make it available to almost none of these
groups and would have a huge impact on its distribution.
Another very good example of how some creative useage of "public domain"
photos is in the form of the also quite famous [[w:Image:Buzz salutes
the U.S. Flag.jpg]] that was later used by none other than MTV for
promotions of their television channel. It has also been used in other
contexts as well, where the U.S. flag has been photoshopped to other
images. Clearly this is a case where having public domain content can
be used creatively in manners that having copyright restrictions would
not normally allow such use. Especially if you are manipulating images
for artistic purposes, it is essential to have some content that is in
the public domain to avoid having significant licensing problems and
relying on "fair use" as a very poor substitute.
It should be of note that the only image that NASA has a real problem
with people using is the official logos of NASA, especially if such
usage implies endorsement.
How this relates to the ESA, I am not entirely sure. One huge problem
the ESA faces is that they have a committee of many nations to help
decide policy on this issue, each of which has their own unique cultural
background. In contrast, the USA has had a long tradition of putting
all government publications into the public domain, so it was a
no-brainer when NASA decided to do the same with the space pictures. It
wasn't even breaking tradition to do so.
I do hope that the WMF encourages the widespread use of GFDL-compatable
images and multi-media content, more than just simply for compatability
with Wikipedia. It also allows ordinary people to have access to rich
media archives that would otherwise be locked up, or encourage
widespread "IP pirarcy".
It should be of note that those who choose to produce quality artistic
content (both text as well as multi-media content) under copyright and
propritary licensing arrangements are actually helped by having a large
quantity of public domain and free content available. It forces those
of us who do so to prove that what we are making is of the highest
quality and does something original and unique. In the long run, public
domain and free content will make a much richer artistic environment.
--
Robert Scott Horning
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l