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Wikimedia Commons reaches 400,000 Files

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the thats-a-lotta-wiki dept.

Brushen writes "Wikimedia Commons, a website built to be a repository of free, public domain, or GFDL images, sounds, and animations, has reached 400,000 files this week. Launched in September 2004 by the Wikimedia Foundation, the creators of Wikipedia, the organization intended for it to be a source of images that could be used in the rest of the organization's projects. As well, recently they've had a best picture comeptition."

19 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. They managed to... by Somatic · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...find 400,000 images and videos on the internet that weren't porn? Now that really is an accomplishment.

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    1. Re:They managed to... by Dr.Sweety · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, they actuall do have pron :) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nude_wo men

    2. Re:They managed to... by pdiaz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      grammer? or grammar?. Ahh, the irony...

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    3. Re:They managed to... by Scarletdown · · Score: 2, Informative
      Given the symbolism of the time, the swan is probably intended to represent virgin purity.


      Nah. It just means that Zeus was a rather kinky fellow.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leda_and_the_Swan

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  2. Impressive, but... by BertieBaggio · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How many of the media files have been taken despite being under copyright? I've seen the obvious and/or controversial images removed -- pretty promptly in most cases. But how about an image taken from a website with no watermark taken from a website where the webmaster has no time to pursue misappropriation.

    Although if they truly have 400 000 original images that have been validly released for them to use, more power to them.

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    1. Re:Impressive, but... by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, many of the images are not original, in fact a large portion of them are public domain due to age or some other reason. But Wikimedia Commons is much better than Wikipedia with regard to inclusion of copyright violations. The vast majority of images on Wikimedia Commons are in fact public domain or under a free license.

    2. Re:Impressive, but... by teslatug · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You do realise that even works licensed under the GFDL and CC are copyrighted don't you? Which means that a large chunk are copyrighted. Of course, there are public domain ones too.

    3. Re:Impressive, but... by timeOday · · Score: 2, Insightful
      How many of the media files have been taken despite being under copyright?
      Anybody with a collection of anything can get sued in a dispute over whether they actually own something. That's not a problem affects free licenses in particular. The same holds whether you have a collection of files (whether free or commercially licensed), a museum (works have long and twisted histories), own a newspaper (journalists sometimes plagiarize), or run a pawn shop (people might sell you stolen goods).

      So I have no particular concern for Wikipedia.

    4. Re:Impressive, but... by syousef · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Did you know that video or photography taken on private property or of private property requires the permission of the owner before you can exhibit them?

      Have a look at this - one of a collection taken at Disney's Animal Kingdom:
      http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Varanus_ko modoensis2.jpg

      Do you think the owner got permission from Disney to put this up on Wikimedia? I know when I tried to get permission to use photos from Sydney's Taronga Zoo in Australia I was shot down in flames and told they'd persue anyone violating their IP vigorously.

      I had some awesome shots I wanted to make a calendar from. I'm digusted and haven't visited the zoon since. I don't agree with this law at all, but it is the way it is.

      I got the impression they wouldn't go after someone putting the pictures on a web page, but I'm sure if they found their way into a public library like wikimedia. I'm sure other places are the same. I've enquired and National Parks and Wildlife here in Australia are the same. They require you to take out public liability insurance and pay ridiculous rates to film commercially (read anything where you might sell it or put it in a library). Similarly the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority has rules and regulations about filming and requires licenses for commerical use of shots of the harbour.

      Frankly, I think organisations world wide like to shoot themselves in the foot when they get protective of their IP. The system is so damn broken I wish it would just go away. I use to spend whole days shooting at zoos. Now I very rarely bother since I know I can just show friends and that's it. I thought about doing some pro photography on the side, but realised that if I ever sold a picture I could be locked out of shooting for myself privately in a number of places. Who loses out? Me? Sure. But also the damn companies who insist on hoarding their IP, and who I no longer bother to patronize.

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  3. Good idea to post it on ./ by fa2k · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now there will be 100k more files, of which 99k are called hello.jpg ;)

  4. Re:Quick! by Professor_UNIX · · Score: 5, Insightful
    If we /. the wikimedia servers, we can start another fund drive! Who wants to hear another personal appeal from Jimbo?

    Slashdot couldn't overwhelm their servers even if they wanted to. They get a LOT more traffic than Slashdot does.

  5. When will the first lawsuit hit? by BeDoper+Guy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    400,000 files seems like an awful lot of licenses to verify. Having said that, this is a real boon to graphic artists, 3D animators and the like. Gotta love that CC license.

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    1. Re:When will the first lawsuit hit? by typical · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't believe that this is true. I remember reading something about how, while something like the Mona Lisa may not be copyrighted, photographs of the work are, and whoever owns that classic work can prevent anyone but one person from taking a picture of it.

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  6. Re:Page worth a visit by Dpaladin · · Score: 2, Funny

    400,000 files is an impressive achievement, whereas 399,999 files is not, to paraphrase Maddox.

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  7. More royalty free pics, lucky corporate media orgs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, as a photographer I'm not sure I welcome this. Yeah, Adobe has entered the royalty free sector, for cheap-ass business users looking for cheesy pics of people in suits shaking hands. That was never a market I competed in. Wikipedia worries me because well funded media organisations are going to stop paying for real photographers to do stuff like "we need a picture of Barcelona for a travel story". Oh, get a wikimedia image, pay nobody, increase value add for our shareholders. And I guess I don't care about that either because I don't have any pictures of Barcelona. And there are no serious ethical issues of working in Barcelona. But for stuff I do have, like a refugee camp someplace quite logistically hard to get to or work in, or for a picture of the leader of this rebel group, or of a soccer team in a war zone. Is this sort of thing better when it's taken by a kid who doesn't speak the language who's just left college and is doing the peace corps thing, and decides to donate all this holiday snaps to wikimedia(though the pics are lowish resolution and miscaptioned). Or should that kind of thing be done by AP or Reuters who employ (for example) someone in the refugee camp who knows what's going on. Or by independent foreign journalists with their own set of biases? Yeah, we should all adapt to the market, worse is better, etc. I'm watching people who are cross subsidising photography with other income sources eat away at my market, and I don't like it.

  8. Re:They had a best picture competition too by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 2, Funny
    Does one haf to spel badly to subskribe to /.?

    No, for subscribers it is optional. It is only compulsory for the editors.

  9. Don't forget other CC sources by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Informative

    Flicker's CC material has over 8 million pictures now, all CC categories summarized. Even if you restrict yourself to the CC license subset Wikimedia uses, there's still more pictures on Flickr. However, Wikimedia possibly has a more "professional" set of pictures, rather than "here's me and my girlfriend on vacation" pictures, but with Flickr's powerful tagging system, I still recommend people looking for CC pictures suiting their license needs to check them out. I've found a surprising number of high quality photos there that suits Wikipedia perfectly, but keep in mind Wikipedia prefers CC material that is NOT restricted to non-commercial use only. When I use images from Flickr on Wikipedia, I usually use the most free license -- the Attribution license. Then it's a simple matter to attribute the picture with a link and author in the image description when you upload it.

    Of course, don't forget Google's Advanced Search which nowadays support searching for CC licenses material too. If you're still looking, Wikipedia's public domain resource list is another good starting point.

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  10. More creative commons... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In related news, the Geograph project has 108,000 CC-licensed photos now.

  11. Re:More royalty free pics, lucky corporate media o by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Ok....so you've expressed your displeasure with the current market forces, you admit you need to adapt to the new situation...what do you plan on doing about it? You seem to be almost trying to argue that it is not ethically right for some peace corps college kid to upload his pictures because it deprives you of revenue...or maybe I just read that wrong.

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