As Camera-wiki.org expands on the work of the old Camerapedia, we’ve been trying to improve the clarity and consistency of photo credits.
Camera-wiki does not host its own images; almost all are linked from the Flickr photo-sharing service. Flickr permits and even encourages this, but their terms of service say, “web sites that display content hosted on flickr.com must provide a link from each photo or video back to its page on Flickr.” Already, virtually every image in the wiki properly clicks through to the photographer’s own Flickr page.
Camera-wiki has its own Flickr photo pool. When people submit their copyrighted photos to this pool, we understand this as granting permission for the photo to be used by article editors in the pages of Camera-wiki.org. Unlike the wiki text, which is published under “copyleft” (GDFL 1.3), contributors’ photos may still retain “All Rights Reserved” copyright status. Or some photos may have Creative Commons licensing which forbids commercial re-use or derivative works. (These issues are discussed at more length in the wiki page Adding Images.)
We are trying to make all of this more explicit, with an “image rights” link included under each photo, to discourage misuse of contributors’ photos. We also want to note the name of people who were nice enough to contribute their images to Camera-wiki (and of course Creative Commons licensed images require that).
For the sake of ease and consistency, we’re encouraging all our article editors to use the Flickr Image Template when adding images. It still requires a bit of cutting and pasting, to add the image page URL (we ask you use the URL form http://www.flickr.com/photos/alf_sigaro/464292899/in/pool-camerawiki) and the correct-sized image file (under Flickr’s “Grab the HTML/BBCode” menu choice, select the img src=URL that looks like http://farm1.static.flickr.com/232/464292899_0a2384c965.jpg ) —but the result should look approximately like this:
Kodak Retinette II B
image by alf sigaro (image rights)
But please understand—there are something like 10,000 photos in the wiki, so this is not something we can achieve everywhere overnight. In some cases, the layout of pages would need to be redone to add caption text.
We’d be grateful for any volunteer editors who would like to help update attributions and image rights—and perhaps check our Flickr pool for newer, clearer photos at the same time. Thanks!