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The celebrity quoted in the article seemed eager to have his picture taken for the express purpose of getting it on Wikipedia, so you'd think that some of their

The celebrity quoted in the article seemed eager to have his picture taken for the express purpose of getting it on Wikipedia, so you'd think that some of their agents would have gotten the message by now. Pay a photographer, release the photo under some CC licence, slap it on Wikimedia Commons, and leave a message on the talk-page (“Hey, this recent photo looks better, can we use that?”), and done. Weird how that doesn't seem to happen that often, despite many celebrities apparently really wanting it.

cratermoon 2y ago
> Pay a photographer, release the photo under some CC licence The person who buys a photographer's work doesn't get to change the license. Unless you pay a photographer a great deal of money to transfer the rights, the license is what the photographer (or photo agency) says it is.
- theamk 2y ago
  So you choose a different photographer which _does_ offer the license you want? Unless there is a photographers' union that forces specific licenses, surely there will some some photographers out there who would be OK with CC license?
  - cratermoon 2y ago
    Yeah, if you go far enough down the list you'll eventually find one. Will the photographer be any better than some rando Wikipedian? Hard to say.
  - alistairSH 2y ago
    Yeah, you can find one. That’s not what the OP suggested (or at least didn’t explain it well). Rights and licensing in photography is just as complicated as other mediums. Up to primates owning selfies they took with somebody else’s camera. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disp...
- Freak_NL 2y ago
  An agent acting for a celebrity would know exactly how to handle this, including paying the photographer a fair price for their work and the full rights, and handling all the paper work. That's their job. It's not hard either. I mean, you could just step into a high street photo shop and have your portrait taken professionally, keep all the usage rights to it for a small amount of money, and end up with a photo already better than most of those Wikipedia examples from the article. But professional photographers usually are willing to negotiate this upfront as well, and why not? The fee rises, but not beyond what most celebrities can afford to pay for this. More relevantly though, an agent won't let the copyright sit with the photographer by default if they need that photo for all sorts of stuff themself, including commercial use. Besides, larger agencies are likely to have photographers on staff who do this.
  - cratermoon 2y ago
    "just". That's it people, rando HN commenter solved the problem. No need to do anything special.
alistairSH 2y ago
As the sibling said, that's not generally how photography licensing works (the photographer usually retains the rights to the photo and licenses it for specific use). But, that also wouldn't stop a celebrity (or their agent) from taking a nice selfie, or picking a family candid, or whatever other photo looks better than whatever is posted currently. Or just paying a slightly larger sum to the photographer to transfer rights or release under CC or whatever. I'm surprised it isn't a priority - I assume most celebs have a media team already (at least celebs I'm likely to have heard of) but some still have really awful Wiki portraits.
- Freak_NL 2y ago
  > As the sibling said, that's not generally how photography licensing works (the photographer usually retains the rights to the photo and licenses it for specific use). Obviously they would have to pay the photographer for the photo as well as the usage rights. Clever photographers would know about this, and simply offer to release the photo under CC-BY. With a big enough celebrity that attribution is not bad too have plastered all over the internet either (and they still got paid for the work).

cratermoon 2y ago

> Pay a photographer, release the photo under some CC licence The person who buys a photographer's work doesn't get to change the license. Unless you pay a photographer a great deal of money to transfer the rights, the license is what the photographer (or photo agency) says it is.

theamk 2y ago
So you choose a different photographer which _does_ offer the license you want? Unless there is a photographers' union that forces specific licenses, surely there will some some photographers out there who would be OK with CC license?
- cratermoon 2y ago
  Yeah, if you go far enough down the list you'll eventually find one. Will the photographer be any better than some rando Wikipedian? Hard to say.
- alistairSH 2y ago
  Yeah, you can find one. That’s not what the OP suggested (or at least didn’t explain it well). Rights and licensing in photography is just as complicated as other mediums. Up to primates owning selfies they took with somebody else’s camera. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disp...
Freak_NL 2y ago
An agent acting for a celebrity would know exactly how to handle this, including paying the photographer a fair price for their work and the full rights, and handling all the paper work. That's their job. It's not hard either. I mean, you could just step into a high street photo shop and have your portrait taken professionally, keep all the usage rights to it for a small amount of money, and end up with a photo already better than most of those Wikipedia examples from the article. But professional photographers usually are willing to negotiate this upfront as well, and why not? The fee rises, but not beyond what most celebrities can afford to pay for this. More relevantly though, an agent won't let the copyright sit with the photographer by default if they need that photo for all sorts of stuff themself, including commercial use. Besides, larger agencies are likely to have photographers on staff who do this.
- cratermoon 2y ago
  "just". That's it people, rando HN commenter solved the problem. No need to do anything special.

alistairSH 2y ago

As the sibling said, that's not generally how photography licensing works (the photographer usually retains the rights to the photo and licenses it for specific use). But, that also wouldn't stop a celebrity (or their agent) from taking a nice selfie, or picking a family candid, or whatever other photo looks better than whatever is posted currently. Or just paying a slightly larger sum to the photographer to transfer rights or release under CC or whatever. I'm surprised it isn't a priority - I assume most celebs have a media team already (at least celebs I'm likely to have heard of) but some still have really awful Wiki portraits.

Freak_NL 2y ago
> As the sibling said, that's not generally how photography licensing works (the photographer usually retains the rights to the photo and licenses it for specific use). Obviously they would have to pay the photographer for the photo as well as the usage rights. Clever photographers would know about this, and simply offer to release the photo under CC-BY. With a big enough celebrity that attribution is not bad too have plastered all over the internet either (and they still got paid for the work).