[Lexicog] copyright-free images for use in dictionary

[David Joffe]

> I'm well aware that there are multiple Creative Commons licenses

That's why I chose the words "Many people think Creative Commons is 
a single license type" and not, say, "Bill Poser thinks Creative 
Commons is a single license type"; it wasn't aimed at you, I just 
thought I'd make it more explicitly clear for others on the list who 
might not have fully understood that - which seems reasonable given 
that this is a common area of misunderstanding (heck, most people 
think you can just grab and use any old thing you want off the 
Internet, never mind actually understand the fine points of 
different CC sub-license types). Your phrasing "generally use" 
implicitly made it sound like you're probably good to go not even 
checking such things (even though I realised you didn't mean that) - 
because that's what "you can generally re-use" basically means 
(unless this is just a local variation in my particular English 
dialect).


> much too pessimistic. The great majority of Wikipedia images whose
> license I have checked require only attribution plus, often,
> non-commercial use. Contrary to your implication, an attribution
> requirement is not an impediment to use in a dictionary.

I implied no such thing - just making people more aware that there 
may be an attribution requirement and that it's comparatively far 
more onerous than just, say, 'grabbing from Wikipedia and using'.

It's actually a strangely absurd claim to say I implied that, since 
it's extremely obvious that everyone on this list is more than 
intelligent enough to figure out that an attribution requirement is 
hardly some impossible hurdle to overcome, anyone here can figure 
out "oh that means I must put the copyright holder's name there". 
The only thing is realising that they must do it. I don't even know 
why you're making such a big issue of this; it was a bit of short, 
simple, straightforward commentary and you've somehow twisted it all 
into something it's not.


> I've had picture credit fields in my databases with automatic
> generation of credits in the dictionary text for many years and see no
> reason why this should be a problem for anyone else.

Sure it shouldn't, as long as they realise they must actually do 
that, and that's all I was saying. I'm quite sure you understand the 
nuances of copyright law, but my message wasn't aimed at you, there 
*are* other people on this list. To many people copyright issues are 
very vaguely and poorly understood; some people don't care, while 
some may have grown up in other cultures where Western concepts of 
copyright are simply foreign (I don't mean that in a condescending 
way, it's just a statement of fact).

I've encountered many different types of people producing 
dictionaries, and you'd probably be surprised how many people 
flagrantly flout copyright given half the chance at a flimsy 
rationalisation ... even people working in ostensibly legitimate 
publishing businesses. I've met people who literally thought it was 
perfectly OK to copy other dictionaries wholesale (some made the 
effort to pretend, some literally just didn't see anything wrong 
with that), and I've met people who thought it OK to copy huge 
chunks of other dictionaries, or entire specific fields, people who 
literally dumped any old copyright images and texts and descriptions 
that they Googled from all over the Internet into their 
dictionaries, and so on. So I think it's worth being explicit and 
clear about these issues and the requirements and obligations and so 
on.


> Actually, what constitutes "commercial use" as a matter of law is not
> terribly clear, but in any case, what you actually need to deal with is
> not the legal definition, which sets an upper bound on what the
> copyright owner may require, but his or her actual intention.

Of course, I didn't suggest otherwise.


> The kind of people who post images on Wikipedia tend to be people who
> would not want others to make a profit from their images without
> obtaining their permission and compensating them but who would
> consider the inclusion of their images in a not-really-profit-making
> dictionary of a small language quite appropriate even if it is
> technically "commercial". In my own case, for example, if someone were
> to publish a $100 coffee table book of my photos of British Columbia,
> I'd want a cut, but if someone wants to use some of them in a
> dictionary or local history or some such thing of which they are a
> minor component and which is not really for profit, that's fine with
> me. Of course, if your dictionary might constitute a commercial
> publication it would be wise to contact the copyright holder and
> check.

You can't really make solid assumptions about the copyright holder's 
precise intentions based on the notion of the "type of people who 
generally publish things on Wikipedia" (which is anyway *extremely* 
varied), that's kind of wishful thinking that the copyright holder 
'isn't going to mind' - sure it sounds like something you might be 
able to use as, say, an argument in court - but the whole point is 
that you don't want to ever get that far in the first place, even if 
that hypothetical court ended up agreeing with you. The bottom line 
is, if it says non-commercial, and you in almost any way generate 
some income from a project, you should get permission from the 
copyright holder. Almost everyone wants to think their project is 
"not reeeeeaaaally commercial", but it alway looks different from 
the copyright holder's perspective, and it's their work. Even if 
you're making a loss or breaking even or whatever, it may still be 
commercial, because there is little actual difference between "a 
project that generates some income but doesn't turn a profit" and "a 
commercial venture that makes a loss just because it's run badly" 
other than perception. I've known some pretty wealthy people who 
were running "non-profits".

Clearing permission is just sensible project management anyway, 
because even though in most cases the copyright holder probably 
won't mind, for those few borderline cases you'd be unnecessarily 
opening your project to potential liability: If there is any 
possible vagueness in interpretation of how the licensing conditions 
might apply, and the copyright holder decides you crossed a line you 
thought you didn't, then if you've actually waited until you've 
published a dictionary for this problem to air, things are going to 
be decidedly more complicated than if you brought it up before 
publishing.

Another reason major publishers don't usually use pictures off the 
Internet is that in most cases it's extremely difficult to actually 
confirm the true source of an available image - the (often 
effectively anonymous) person who put it on Wikimedia in the first 
place might've stolen it from elsewhere themselves (whether in 
ignorance or otherwise, doesn't matter). For small projects in 
obscure markets, sure it'll likely never be a problem, but it's 
certainly something to keep in mind for any serious project; if a 
major publisher publishes a dictionary with inadvertently stolen 
images, that would be something of a nuisance.

Pessimistic, you say? Probably - wouldn't be the first time I've 
been called a pessimist. But the way I see it, part of any project 
manager's job description is to recognize potential risks and 
mitigate them. I'll leave it to the optimists and gamblers out there 
to test the boundaries.

 - David

---
http://tshwanedje.com/
TshwaneDJe Human Language Technology




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