A long-standing issue that I (and many other) photographers have with Wikipedia is that the licensing policies for Wikipedia preclude photographers from contributing images without also making those images free for the taking and use for any purpose commercial or non. There are a few caveats (such as fair use), but in general if one contributes images to Wikipedia, one must also allow that image to then be repurposed for other uses including commercial projects.
A group in Portland, Oregon has been constructing PortlandWiki, a community-built wiki that’s all about Portland. Tomorrow there will be a photography contest with the purpose of crowdsourcing the gathering of new images for use on PortlandWiki. When I first heard about the contest, I assumed that the same licensing woes of Wikipedia would be in play and I didn’t think much of it.
Last week, Mark Dilley reached out to me and asked me if I’d heard of the effort and if I had any thoughts. I indicated my photo licensing concerns, and I’m pleased to note that the PortlandWiki folks are taking a more reasonable approach to photos for their project. They’ve added a variety of licensing options, and as Mark noted in an email:
I think we all agree that if the person uploads it to PortlandWiki and says it can be used there – they can pretty much pick the license.
The plan makes sense to me. Allow photographers to license their work for use on PortlandWiki without also forcing them to allow that photo to be used elsewhere. It respects the notion that a photographer may want to contribute their work to a community wiki without also having to give away rights for other usage.
I’ll be out in Portland tomorrow and I hope to create a few images for the PortlandWiki site.
