I was chatting with @_Bleu_ this morning about a trending image in the database and I'm not sure we are properly crediting the Creative Commons licensing that goes along with such images. This is an issue related to how all CC images are displayed in the database, not this particular individual one. The example in question:



Looking closely at the text on this page:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/...

I came across this part:

attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

and I see that even though the image is properly credited and the license is mentioned, there is no actual link to the license. The unlinked text is shown here:

License: Creative Commons (cc-by-sa-3.0) (Attribution, ShareAlike)

I would imagine it would be very easy to automatically hotlink the selected CC license text, and all such CC license text, to the following URL, to conform with the requirements specified on the Wikipedia page.

https://creativecommons.org/li...

Does this make sense?

@dave @jon is there an easy fix for this? Is the link actually necessary?

A live link is necessary. When I upload a CC image to the database I always check the corresponding boxes but all CC licenses I've seen clearly request a "live link" back to the license and that the name of the author be displayed near their work. This does not apply to Public Domain works.

Is there a reason why the NGA does not provide a text field under "Rights" where the live link to an author's license can be pasted?

Most of the photos I post are either mine or Public Domain works but, sometimes, I find excellent photos for database entries that have none and it frustrates me not being able to link to the license. All I can do is type in the name of the author.

Since there was no reply from the folks who work under the hood, I'm going to bump this thread. Quoting from the Creative Commons page listed above (bold added):

terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.

According to this text, we are not complying with the terms of the Creative Commons licensing unless we provide a link to the license (URL above). It should be relatively easy to hotlink the text displayed with images that have this license:

License: Creative Commons (cc-by-sa-3.0) (Attribution, ShareAlike)

Anyone?

Thanks for the reminder, Baja. There's an ongoing discussion about this between the admins at the moment. I'm sure one of us will comment here once we have something to add.

When uploading my own photos to the Database here, I usually click on the creative commons, thinking it may be useful for Wiki commons to display an appropriate image from this Database & then give proper attribution... Am I confused, or are you discussing the converse situation? ( As in obtaining a Wiki commons photo, to add to this Database & providing an automatic attribution.)

The latter. If you click on the image above (from Wikipedia) and then "More Photo Details" you are taken to a page where the license is displayed.

Thank you Baja. I suppose what I didn't quite fully understand, was the ShareAlike ( There is a newer version, near the bottom of ShareAlike page.) So, if I click both CreativeCommons ( expecting attribution, which it did appear) & also click ShareAlike, then there really isn't any point in clicking on 'No Commercial use allowed", after that, as it would seem to me, once you've clicked both, when adding to this Database, you automatically give up that right. If I understand it correctly.

I hope you'll excuse me for getting into unmitigated detail here because I'm not sure I understand your question, and maybe this info would be useful to the general public.

If I'm not mistaken, the difference between these 2 types of licenses (the presence or absence of "ShareAlike") is whether the shared/ported content must be licensed under the same terms as the original.

https://creativecommons.org/li...
https://creativecommons.org/li...

The image on Wikipedia was provided under the first type, the images here are provided under the second type. I don't see any conflict in that order.

As for the text you quoted ("No Commercial use allowed") I don't see that on any of the pages linked above. All that is required for the use of the license is attribution and linking to the license, as specified on the license page. Maybe if you told me where you encountered that particular text, I could try to help make sense of it.

My understanding is that you retain the commercial rights to your original images if you specify "all rights reserved" when you upload them to the database here (different from the above example). Those rights extending beyond how they appear on this site in the database, of course.

Perhaps there ought to be a "sticky" post, including a short details...to some links, with explanations of some of these topics, to give the users a better understanding of what the choices selected entail, either before , or while uploading a photo. It might be helpful, with some explanation of the process & what links are acceptable, to give, when "adding" a new plant, to the Database. Just some simple instructions may be a bit more helpful & then others could ask, if further assistance is required, or there are other questions.
If it is too technical, maybe people are reluctant to upload, or add new plant photos, or don't want them appearing elsewhere, without permission, as some may actually prefer their photo to stay only where they uploaded it to. Just a suggestion.

There are options like you describe on the submission page for database images. Toward the bottom:



You can select the rights option you prefer, and those little blue icons are clickable. so they take you to an in-depth description of what each license means.

If you have ideas about how to improve this submission page, by all means speak up. But I think the current layout is pretty good.

Thank you Baja. It seems to have changed in appearance, since I last used upload a photo , to the Database.

ShawnSteve said:Thank you Baja. It seems to have changed in appearance, since I last used upload a photo , to the Database.

Nothing has changed, it's the same since the database was first created.