Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-10-12/In the news
IOC objects to Creative Commons license, Wikipedia at Yale, and more
International Olympics Committee issues legal threat over Creative Commons photography
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Usain_Bolt_Olympics_Celebration.jpg/170px-Usain_Bolt_Olympics_Celebration.jpg)
Wikipedia may be the key link in the recent news story of photographer Richard Giles, who got a legal threat from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over licensing his images from the Beijing Olympics under Creative Commons licenses. Giles explains the situation on his blog:
It turns out that my Usain Bolt photo was being used by a book shop in the UK to advertise the launch of the Guinness Book of Records 2010. This was being done without my knowledge, and as they pointed out, in breach of the license granted on the Olympic ticket.
The Usain Bolt photo was the only one of 293 in the set on Flickr that was licensed with a ShareAlike license (allowing commercial use) rather than a non-commercial license, and Giles had relicensed that particular photo at the request of another Flickrite so that it could be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and used on Wikipedia. Wikipedia, which uses the image prominently, may be where that UK merchant found it.
Giles reports that the IOC may only object to licensing that allows commercial use. Depending on what the IOC says in response to his request for clarification, Giles may be changing the license on the Usain Bolt photo and asking the UK merchant to stop using it. However, it is Wikimedia Commons policy to retain photos from Flickr that were originally obtained under a free license, even if the license on Flickr is subsequently changed. Wikimedia Commons has hundreds of other photos from the Beijing Olympics by other photographers, all of which are licensed to permit commercial use.
Wikipedia at Yale
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bf/Alan_Dershowitz_and_Jimmy_Wales%2C_2009-10-07.jpg/220px-Alan_Dershowitz_and_Jimmy_Wales%2C_2009-10-07.jpg)
An interview with Jimmy Wales was published this week in the Yale Daily News, following his visit and talk at Yale last week.
Also at Yale, a real-life contest – the bladderball game traditionally played at Yale – turned into a Wikipedia edit war, as chronicled by the Yale Daily News.
Briefly
- The Wikimedia Strategy Project's Barry Newstead blogged about the strategy project on harvardbusiness.org
- Conservapedia has launched the "Conservapedia Bible project," a project to translate the Bible to correct for perceived liberal bias in existing translations. A wide variety of news sources picked up on the story, including the Globe and Mail and the Huffington Post.
- The Green Tea II oriental restaurant in Framingham, Massachusetts once offered Wikipedia-flavored beef brisket as seen on page 4, item #C14 of their menu[dead link]. The Telegraph's recent story was tempered with sad news that the restaurant has closed.
Discuss this story
IOC photo license controversy
Regarding this statement in the story:
That is, in my view, not quite correct. It only holds if the license granted was within the power of the licensor to grant. In this particular case (IMHO, and reminder, I am not a lawyer) there is a possibility that the license the photographer granted, although presumably done in good faith and with no malice implied, was not theirs to grant, based on whether ticket provisions are enforceable or not. (I have no idea if they are in this context...) If the license was not theirs to grant, what I quoted does not, in my view, apply. ++Lar: t/c 18:29, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The CC-By-SA 3 terms state that "Licensor reserves the right to release the Work under different license terms or to stop distributing the Work at any time; provided, however that any such election will not serve to withdraw this License (or any other license that has been, or is required to be, granted under the terms of this License), and this License will continue in full force and effect unless terminated as stated above" (7b). However even if the photographer was in breach of contract, the images remain his copyright and even if their rights were terminated, "Individuals or entities who have received Adaptations or Collections from You under this License, however, will not have their licenses terminated provided such individuals or entities remain in full compliance with those licenses." (7a)
The question is a complex one legally: the image is beyond doubt that person's; his action in licensing it has caused loss/harm (or risk of harm, or so it's claimed) to a contractual party by virtue of breach of contract. So the answer would seem to be that Commons remains able to legally use the image, because the coppyright holder licensed the image and Commons has taken up that license, it's up to IOC to claim against the photographer for his breach and any harm they care to prove. Possibly an act of futility though. But that would still probably leave them with no visible formal legal claim against us; in the eyes of the law, Commons has republished an item under legally granted license, and neither breached copyright nor contract in doing so. FT2 (Talk | email) 03:17, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]