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I would love to have specific guidelines about whether specific image types are permissible on WeRelate, and how to use/cite them.
For example, a section on census images, explaining that they are fine to use, as long as you are just using a low-resolution image of one page (or whatever the actual "rules" are). Or that it's not OK to take headstone images from FindAGrave (unless it is...), etc.
Right now, the guidelines aren't very helpful - they just direct us to become experts in copyright law. I come to the page with an image, wondering if I can upload it to the site. I want the tools to figure out if the answer is "yes" or "no" or "yes, but make sure it's low resolution or only one page", etc.
- Jdfoote1 10:46, 31 August 2012 (EDT)
- The whole question of copyright isn't specific to WeRelate, you know, so it's not that you have to become an "expert in copyright law" just to make contributions here. If you have Internet access, then the question of what you are legally permitted to post anywhere online is always going to be with you -- images, documents, or whatever. Just like if you're going to drive a car on public roads, it's incumbent on you to know the traffic laws. Having said that, you should also be aware that none of us on WR are intellectual property lawyers (though some of us have had to deal with copyright questions professionally) so any guidelines are going to be merely our best interpretation of an often complex subject. (And many of those interpretations are borrowed from Wikipedia, where there are true experts available.) By the way, I suspect a significant proportion of the grave marker photos posted on Find-a-Grave were not the actual property of the posters, either. --MikeTalk 09:09, 2 September 2012 (EDT)
- Thanks very much for the response. While I understand that there is a lot of gray area, and that this is a complex subject, it seems like there must be some better way to summarize what we have learned as a community. Maybe something as simple as :
Allowed image types
- photographs in the public domain
- US government created images
- etc.
Forbidden image types
- photographs of living people
- photographs taken within the last x years
- etc.
Gray areas
- images of a census from a third party (e.g. FamilySearch or Ancestry)
- etc.
- Jdfoote1 09:39, 2 September 2012 (EDT)
I've reworded parts of Help:Images and added examples to Help:Image licensing. Is this what you are looking for?--Dallan 23:15, 29 September 2012 (EDT)
I assume this request was adequately addressed by Dallan's edits in 2012, and will archive this request.--DataAnalyst 14:42, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
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