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German Gov't Donates 100,000 Images To Wikipedia

Posted by Soulskill on from the only-80000-are-of-beer-and-sausages dept.

Raul654 writes "The German Federal Archive has agreed to donate 100,000 images to Wikipedia under the German version of the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License. These pictures cover a period from 1860 to present. This is the largest picture donation ever to Wikipedia, and possibly the largest in the history of the free culture movement." Apparently, this is part of a project which will eventually make 11 million photos available for public use.

16 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. I'm Confused Why We Don't See This En Masse by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You would think that Governments--who exist to serve the people--would constantly look for avenues of already successful community sites as venues for returning information to the public. With privacy & security in mind, I wish that more governments would release this sort of stuff under a creative commons ... even if citizens of the world then have access to it, I don't think the taxpayers would mind. Wikipedia & other Wikimedia sites have shown to be very successful non-profit sites that are community owned and driven. Can anyone think of a good reason why we shouldn't extend the Freedom of Information Act a little further with recent advancements in communications and technology?

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    1. Re:I'm Confused Why We Don't See This En Masse by TorKlingberg · · Score: 5, Informative

      To be fair, the US government rule that works by government employees are not copyrighted has provided for a lot of free images used on Wikipedia. European governments, for example, are much more restrictive about copyrights.

    2. Re:I'm Confused Why We Don't See This En Masse by maxume · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What's socialist about governmental transparency?

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      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    3. Re:I'm Confused Why We Don't See This En Masse by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 3, Informative

      Obama "can't" send emails due to the presidential records act. More specifically, he can send all the emails he wants, but any email the president sends is a matter of public record.

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      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
    4. Re:I'm Confused Why We Don't See This En Masse by plasticsquirrel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You would think that Governments--who exist to serve the people...

      I think this is where it starts going wrong. Government institutions are basically working in their own self interest, and the only thing that makes government in check is the pressure put on it by people.

      When legislators are looking over bills, in the back of their minds, there is the question, "Will this help me get elected again?" If it doesn't give them money or support, it's a bad move for them politically. How can any good government exist in such a system, except through constant pressure from voters?

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  2. Re:Fortunately or unfortunately by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wrong stereotype I'm afraid. I think this action will affect pictures like this

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Einsatzgruppen_Killing.jpg

    So hopefully clusterfucks like this won't happen in future

    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Image:Einsatzgruppen-Killingfull.jpg

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  3. German speakers: help wanted by Raul654 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For any German speakers out there: Most (all?) of these pictures lack English captions. I'm sure the people on Commons could use all the assistance they can get translating the German captions (especially into English). You can register an account on Commons and help.

    Also, props go to Wikimedia Deutchland, which arranged this donation.

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    To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
    --E.C. Stanton
    1. Re:German speakers: help wanted by molo · · Score: 4, Informative

      A link to the actual photos: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_German_Federal_Archive

      -molo

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      Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
  4. that's one of the arguments being presented by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can't say if it was a decisive factor in this particular image donation, but that's one of the arguments free-content proponents have been using to try to get other governments to open up at least some portion of their images: pointing out that since there is this large public-domain repository of US government images, if they want to promote their history and culture on par with that of the US, they need to provide us with a similarly high-quality, free-licensed collection of images.

    Otherwise a large portion of generic examples are going to be US-based ones, simply because they gave us the images whereas other countries didn't.

    Sometimes it leads to almost comical results, where dozens of other countries' leaders, ministers, and other figures are illustrated on Wikipedia by a photograph of them shaking hands with Reagan or Carter or Kissinger or whoever, because that US-visit photograph was freely released by the US State Department, while their photographs from back home are under a more restrictive copyright.

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  5. sometimes translation to German, too! by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Some of the captions are in need of being rewritten into a reasonable form even in German, especially older ones that are either out of date or hilariously biased. The worst are probably those that were apparently entered during World War II and never updated.

    For example, this one (which has in fact been updated), originally came with a caption that reads roughly:

    Poland, Jew ordered to perform hard labor

    For the first time they can make themselves useful. These Polish Kaftan-Jews (?), whose activity so far has only consisted of working against the volk-conscious German nation in the most detestable and conniving manner, receive the opportunity on the eastern front to make themselves really useful for the first time in their lives. Here they can be seen ready to embark on their work orders.

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    1. Re:sometimes translation to German, too! by LandDolphin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      rewriting is fine, as long as you save the original too. The propaganda that was written on there is a much a part of history as the picture itself.

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    2. Re:sometimes translation to German, too! by matt4077 · · Score: 5, Informative

      There is a disclaimer to that effect. Add a better (correct) description, but leave the original unchanged for documentary purposes.

      It's quite a task to translate these descriptions. Those that I looked at all contained words or even concepts that people don't even know anymore ("Institute for Race Hygiene and Crime", wtf?)

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    3. Re:sometimes translation to German, too! by jalet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Personally whenever I read an encyclopedia I want to see the original caption, or its translated version, as well as some lengthy textual, factual and neutral explanation about the context this picture was taken in. And if Hitler or Staline had mustaches when the picture was taken, I want to see them on the picture shown to me 60 or more years later.

      If we begin to rewrite history by modifying original captions, instead of explaining why they were written this way, what's to stop us from modifying pictures themselves ? After all many countries used (haha !) to do this. I propose you put "Painter of the XXth century" as the caption below every picture of Hitler, instead of "German politician who inspired and directed the extermination of millions of people for dubious reasons"...

      Not sure if you understand this point of view, but historical artifacts like pictures are what they are, and have to be used as historical artifacts, nothing less, nothing more, and despite their content being "shocking" for some people.

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    4. Re:sometimes translation to German, too! by ljw1004 · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Institute for Race Hygiene and Crime".

      It was sort of cross between the DHS and the guantanamo "Combatant Status Review Tribunal".

    5. Re:sometimes translation to German, too! by Deadstick · · Score: 4, Informative
      These Polish Kaftan-Jews (?)

      Kaftans were a common item of apparel for Central European Jews in those times, and served as an ethnic stereotype. "Kaftan-Jew" would be a pejorative comparable to, say, "towelhead" for an Arab.

      rj

  6. Re:Fortunately or unfortunately by Belial6 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That is an interesting link, and beyond the value of the content, it also shows the evils of our dysfunctional copyright. The arguments that this photo should not be lost because it chronicles one of our (as in the human race) despicable moments are valid. I would also say that it is just as bad to let our chronicles of good and happiness be destroyed as it is to let chronicles of evil and shame.

    So, this photo SHOULD be in the public domain, but so should works that are not chronicles of shame. For example, it is a travisty that the 'Happy Birthday' song is still under copyright.