Who is Mike Meredith?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

http://deskthority.net/wiki/File:Displaywriter92.jpg

"… picture by Mike Meredith"

Who is Mike Meredith? Has he authorised the use of this image on the wiki?

You can't sidestep copyright by telling people whose work it is that you're copying. It doesn't work like that.

Please use Template:Imagedesc for all uploaded media — there are fields to help remind you to state not only the author of the work, but the source (did it come from a website, for example, and if so, what's the URL?) and the copyright terms. If this Mr Meredith has authorised the use of the work, write "Copyright Mike Meredith; used with permission" as the copyright terms, thus indicating that Deskthority may use it, but that it may not be copied from Deskthority by anyone else.

I don't know the ins and outs of fair use law when applied internationally, but if fair use is believed to apply (and the creator of the work is not aware that an image was taken from their website), you should state this, and be sure to put the source URL to the page containing the image (not the image itself, otherwise it deprives the copyright holder of receiving traffic from interested parties, and denies visitors the ability to see the image in its original context).

There are certain people who have authorised their work to be used on Deskthority or on any website; these are documented here:

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Help:Contents#Copyright

If anyone else has given explicit permission for any of their work to be used on Deskthority, add them to the aforementioned list.

[7bit]

From what I know daedalus is not Mike Meredith.


Maybe you should ask him. Let me know if you need his e-mail or postal address ...

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Auf Englisch, bitte!

[Muirium]

Let me translate:

== this guy:
http://deskthority.net/wiki/Special:Con ... s/Daedalus

So what we've got is more of an author disambiguation problem than a straightforward old yoink!

[Daniel Beardsmore]

7bit seemed to be suggesting that daedalus isn't Mike Meredith. He's probably not Tom Fischer either. I didn't ask daedalus directly, as he's far from the only person to post stolen images. For example, the Futaba clicky switch image was stolen by sixty from alps.tw. I've now attributed that correctly, since I've actually obtained permission from alps.tw directly and publicly to use his images. (I didn't even know alps.tw had Futaba photos, but in retrospect I should have recognised his unique style!)

There are plenty of good photos out there on the web, but you don't steal them. Everyone here needs to understand this.

[7bit]

Auf Englisch, bitte!

Deadalus ist nicht Mike Meredith.
Du solltest ihn mal direkt fragen, wer Mike Meredith ist.
Brauchst Du seine e-mail Adresse oder seine Postanschrift?

ps: He is also not Tom Fisher.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I understand that better than your English!

It was a rhetorical question, though. I don't care who Mike Meredith actually is; that wasn't the point.

[daedalus]

http://deskthority.net/wiki/File:Displaywriter92.jpg

"… picture by Mike Meredith"

Who is Mike Meredith?

He's a nice guy who was on Geekhack who gave me permission to use the picture of his Displaywriter way back when when I was making the IBM Wiki on Geekhack. I happened to refer to him by his full name because I redownloaded the pic off his site and decided to use his full name as was present.

Case closed.

Maybe you should ask him. Let me know if you need his e-mail or postal address ...

I think giving out people's personal details on a forum (even if in private) is pretty poor show. If Mr. Beardsmore was a moderator on this site, he would be able to view my email address for himself. He's not so he shouldn't.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

No, it's not closed. While it was a rhetorical question, you do still need to update the descriptions of all your uploaded images to credit them correctly (for example, Tom Fischer's), as does everyone else who's uploaded images. It's important to know where an image came from. Own work should be labelled as such.

[daedalus]

But I have credited the pictures. Thus why this thread is here. I really must be missing something here.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Credited to whom? Who's Mike Meredith? How does anyone looking at the image page know who he is, or whether use of the image is permitted? These details should go in the image description, not this topic! I've already explained this in detail in the first place, including listing the template specifically designed for this purpose.

Obviously there's nothing to stop you from lying, and citing fictitious copyright terms, but with a link back to the source page, at least the source of the image is documented. It's good practice to include a source URL regardless of the copyright holder's terms (not everyone requires a link back to them) — I always do this, and the link goes to the page the image came from, so anyone curious can see/read more. Gives the creator of the image a bit more traffic.

[daedalus]

In the case of mike's picture, this is doable. On the other hand, there are situations where the pictures no longer exist any more (thanks Geekhack) and all I have is the memory that I asked the nice folks who posted them at the time. Believe it or not, I've been asking people for permission to use their pictures long before Deskthority even existed, so let's ease up on the accusations of theft and lying, etc.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I never said you lied about anything, only that the description contents don't prove anything, but that a URL at least indicates the origin, so regardless of how the image is described, there is no doubt of where it came from originally (assuming the source is trustworthy!).

However, there are definitely stolen images on the wiki, and this needs to be undone. The images from MouseFan and the one from alps.tw are OK, as I've obtained permission for their work independently, and I've retroactively credited the ones I've found subsequent to that. I have no idea where most images have come from; any that are described correctly, can be considered as trusted and left alone.

Even if the source is forgotten, the image can be noted to be used with permission from a forgotten source.

[chimborazo]

sorry guys. this is an open forum which discusses an open wiki.


(Abstract) Daedalus, I don't think Daniel implied that you are lying, only that there is nothing to stop you from lying, unless there is a source in the image description. Because even if you lied about the images, the source supports your claims. The image description template therefore should be fill out accordingly.

Which makes me wonder. Let's say that Daedalus decides to lie flat out, and he becomes a vindictive and manipulative creature, and starts making up fictitious names, either because he suffers from amnesia and can't remember the exact time and date when the peoples to whom the images are credited, provided him with such images, or just because he is fed up with an unfair world. Either way, The question that follows is: ¿Why should the restrictions of copyright infringement on the Deskthority wiki, should be enforced within the mandatory and obligatory requirements to fill out a template of said image?

Of course, It is the best practice to do so. And I agree with daniel in that. But, why should this requirement needs to be met with such irrational one trick pony behavior on daniel's part, is just beyond me.

Let's say that the image in question does not have an image description. Which it's wrong practice. I'm not denying it either. But from a legal standpoint, only the user who uploaded the image should be liable for it, and not the users nor entity who run the wiki.

On one hand, daniel is trying to enforce copyright restrictions or at the very least, state the copyright terms, against any future liabilities that may arise from infringements of the use of these images.

On the other, daedalus, whose contributions to the wiki and forums, are overly appreciated, is perhaps one of the most valuable members of deskthority. No one except him, has more insight and knowledge of the buckling spring switch. Newbies like chimborazo might better be reminded of said ambiguities that the topic of this thread is based on. But if the images are not sourced, further action could be the deletion of said images with no effect whatsoever on the wiki itself.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

You know — I had no idea alps.tw had photos of Futaba internals. I just thought he was Mr Alps. Since everyone stole that Futaba photo from him, I had no idea it was his work, and therefore no obvious way to follow the image back to his Futaba page, and to the remaining pictures and information! (I've now added, to the wiki, the remaining photos that I never knew existed. The page, I can't reliably translate, but other people here who know Chinese will be able to do so.)

Failure to cite image source works against our favour, too, as we stifle the spread of knowledge by blocking access to the source of the original information.

([wiki]Alps integrated dome[/wiki] is another example — Ripster stole one image off the guy, that told you very little; having independently found the original page, which was far more helpful, we have all the photos, instead of just one, and some specifications.)

[daedalus]

I think I may have been overly defensive earlier. I'll take some time out to review the pictures I uploaded and ensure that all credit is given to the correct authors.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

:)

[bpiphany]

I made amends and added author and copyright to all my pictures. Caused Daniel some work fixing them for me, sorry about that ;)

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Good man. I should have done that with global find/replace, which I've since learnt either has a lag of several hours, or only runs in the wee hours; in either case it does not tell you that your change won't take immediate effect!! Thanks for pretending to eat all my changes, MediaWiki!

[mikem]

Who is Mike Meredith? That'll be me

Before saying anything else, I hereby grant permission for deskthority.net to use any and all images to be found under my "Stuff->Keyboards" photo gallery to be found at: http://zonky.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_i ... &g2_page=1. Mentioning my name and/or linking back to my site (http://zonky.org) would be appreciated.

As it happens I don't recall granting daedalus permission to use my DisplayWriter keyboard photo way back when ... not that I doubt it happened, but my memory is not that great. Which is a good reason to do things relatively formally and keep things on file.

As to copyright infringements, I'm no legal expert, but I do have both professional and personal reasons to be aware of copyright matters. It is probable that the person legally liable for a copyright violation would be the user who uploaded it rather than Deskthority; however any jack-booted lawyers who get sent 'round will be talking to Deskthority first. And you can be in the right legally but still lose in court.

Having said that, a copyright violation is routinely tackled by sending a polite request to take down the offending article (processing those notices is something I do a lot of). Going straight to legal action would be considered foolish in the extreme, and would quite probably be regarded by a court as being unreasonable.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I was asked only yesterday whether yab8433408 could use photos from Deskthority. Obviously it depends on an image-by-image basis, and in so many cases, the image doesn't have any license information recorded. In such cases, you'd have to contact the uploader of every image you're interested in, and there's a good chance they will ignore you or aren't even around any more. (That's assuming that they even remember where the image came from — was it theirs? Did they upload someone else's image, and did they ever get permission for it? Do they know who you need to refer to instead?)

Specifying licence information with every image uploaded is really helpful when people want to re-use images elsewhere, for example in a non-English-language keyboard community.

[tactica]

Necroposting.

So, anyone can tell who Tom Fischer is? Otherwise wiki/File:Displaywriter.jpg needs replacement.

[tactica]

Changing topic just in case it helps somehow.