05 mirror: http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14194282/discussion-amending-image-use-policy
Here on the Wiki, we prize attribution. We treat unsourced images as copyrighted and remove them from the site, and we demand attribution even for public domain sources - all to make sure that the images are indeed compliant with the site.
Throughout the internet, there are scores of websites that claim to host thousands of public domain images; however, an examination of these websites reveal that they obtain their content via scraping off other, more reputable websites. Additionally, these image sites may host further problems. MaxPixel, for example, has the dubious honor of users downloading malware when downloading images. Pikist reverses the images it finds and claims them as its own. These scraper websites take the template of sites like Pixabay and Pexels, all without attributing those who took the images.
As such, I am proposing that we amend our current image policy to restrict the usage of sites claiming to provide public domain images that Licensing has not whitelisted. By my count, there are eleven sites that have been pre-vetted by Licensing to host and provide images compatible with the Wiki’s license:
Outside of these eleven sites, no other public domain site will be considered a proper image source for the purposes of Licensing. Subsequent sites may be whitelisted at the discretion of Licensing if they have proven themselves to provide proper attribution. For a site to be whitelisted, it must meet the following requirements:
- Provides the license that the images use in a clear and difficult to miss location. Users should be able to determine the particular license an image is under without difficulty.
- Have proper and accessible terms of service. Some sites may have a Terms of Service but their site automatically loads into the next set of images, making accessing those ToS difficult. A substitute for this can be a statement that explicitly states that the images are under public domain and can be used freely, which ties into the next point:
- Images can actually be used freely. A lot of sites put restrictions on reuploading hosted images onto other websites, and is the reason why Pixabay and Pexels have a cut-off date for what images are CC0.
- A site may host non-CC compliant images, but must have a clear indication of what licenses those images are under. “Free” images do not correlate to compliant with CC BY-SA 3.0, The best example of this is CC Search and Flickr, which explicitly state what licenses a particular image may be under.
As a final note, all these revisions are not retroactive. If an image currently exists on the wiki that is from a non-whitelisted public domain site, it will be allowed on the wiki.
This discussion is open to everyone.
