4 ms·

Out of curiosity, are there any checks run on these images to see if they really are CC? This search result for 'satellites' is a screenshot of a google maps r

by scanny 7y ago

Out of curiosity, are there any checks run on these images to see if they really are CC? This search result for 'satellites' is a screenshot of a google maps result, which includes the copyright information for the imagery within the CC image [see the bottom right attribution text in the imagery]. How can that really be in CC? https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/3f0eddb0-55b4-46e0-ba91-4be614e71520 https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/3f0eddb0-55b4-46e0... How could we be sure that the images themselves are genuinely licensed rather than someone copying it from another source and slapping on the licence?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kgodey 7y ago
We do our best to verify the license but cannot 100% guarantee that the image is CC-licensed. We have custom scripts that we use to ingest content from each content provider. For Flickr, we use their API which contains license information for each work. If you click through to the source image, you can see that the user who uploaded the image did license it under CC BY-SA 2.0. We don't yet have a way of dealing with content where the user incorrectly licensed it, I think we could add a "report image" function that would help us identify and remove this type of content. There's a disclaimer if you scroll down that says "Verify at the source: Flickr" with an explanation of why we can't guarantee the license, maybe we should make that more prominent.
- scanny 7y ago
  Thanks for the answer, that is completely understandable. I guess the user just needs to do a bit of due diligence before running with it.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Maybe the Flickr user did buy a license from Google for that particular screenshot that allowed them to publish it as CC BY-SA. How would you verify this? What's the legal situation here? Can Google sue me when I use that image, or do they have to sue the Flickr user?
  - luckylion 7y ago
    Google can sue you, you can in turn probably sue whoever "gave" you the image and said it was licensed CC BY-SA. Just like you can't keep a stolen item that somebody sold you for cash, you're not free from liability when you're publishing an image you didn't have rights to. You'll always need to apply judgement before publishing, and I'd do a reverse image search at the very least.
    - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      But, in general if you inadvertently buy an item that was stolen; on eBay, say; then you wouldn't be prosecuted for it, you just would lose ownership. In the parallel situation here the 'selling' company [CC search] is saying "this isn't stolen", and you're using it in good faith. Seems like your liability _should_ be zero. If CC_search also did due diligence then their liability should probably be zero too. Media mega-corps probably see things differently so I imagine their copyright laws mightn't be as liberal.
      - luckylion 7y ago
        Yeah, it's a civil issue, I don't think anybody would try to jail somebody. You will be in breach of license, so the rights holder won't care why you're violating copyright, only that you do. I don't know of any judicial system where "good faith" is applied to civil suits (i.e. you eating my food thinking it was yours gets you out of buying me a new plate). Similar to the hypothetical ebay case: you're going to be asked to reimburse the owner (or return his property), you collecting from the seller is a different story.
        mojomark 7y ago
        Would be interesting if moving forward, when a user wants to take an image they know they will likely share as CC, they could tap a button to turn on 'CC tagging' such that the camera app applies a digital signaure to the image. Perhaps then, at least some image sources could be validated as being intentionally released under CC by operator of the image source at the time.
antpls 7y ago
The same question could be asked for code posted on Github, yet it doesn't seem to be a problem in practice. Everyone just trust the license header in the files.

by scanny 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

kgodey 7y ago

We do our best to verify the license but cannot 100% guarantee that the image is CC-licensed. We have custom scripts that we use to ingest content from each content provider. For Flickr, we use their API which contains license information for each work. If you click through to the source image, you can see that the user who uploaded the image did license it under CC BY-SA 2.0. We don't yet have a way of dealing with content where the user incorrectly licensed it, I think we could add a "report image" function that would help us identify and remove this type of content. There's a disclaimer if you scroll down that says "Verify at the source: Flickr" with an explanation of why we can't guarantee the license, maybe we should make that more prominent.

scanny 7y ago
Thanks for the answer, that is completely understandable. I guess the user just needs to do a bit of due diligence before running with it.
adrianN 7y ago
Maybe the Flickr user did buy a license from Google for that particular screenshot that allowed them to publish it as CC BY-SA. How would you verify this? What's the legal situation here? Can Google sue me when I use that image, or do they have to sue the Flickr user?
- luckylion 7y ago
  Google can sue you, you can in turn probably sue whoever "gave" you the image and said it was licensed CC BY-SA. Just like you can't keep a stolen item that somebody sold you for cash, you're not free from liability when you're publishing an image you didn't have rights to. You'll always need to apply judgement before publishing, and I'd do a reverse image search at the very least.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    But, in general if you inadvertently buy an item that was stolen; on eBay, say; then you wouldn't be prosecuted for it, you just would lose ownership. In the parallel situation here the 'selling' company [CC search] is saying "this isn't stolen", and you're using it in good faith. Seems like your liability _should_ be zero. If CC_search also did due diligence then their liability should probably be zero too. Media mega-corps probably see things differently so I imagine their copyright laws mightn't be as liberal.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      Yeah, it's a civil issue, I don't think anybody would try to jail somebody. You will be in breach of license, so the rights holder won't care why you're violating copyright, only that you do. I don't know of any judicial system where "good faith" is applied to civil suits (i.e. you eating my food thinking it was yours gets you out of buying me a new plate). Similar to the hypothetical ebay case: you're going to be asked to reimburse the owner (or return his property), you collecting from the seller is a different story.
      - mojomark 7y ago
        Would be interesting if moving forward, when a user wants to take an image they know they will likely share as CC, they could tap a button to turn on 'CC tagging' such that the camera app applies a digital signaure to the image. Perhaps then, at least some image sources could be validated as being intentionally released under CC by operator of the image source at the time.

antpls 7y ago

The same question could be asked for code posted on Github, yet it doesn't seem to be a problem in practice. Everyone just trust the license header in the files.