[Wiki Loves Monuments] Photos with watermarks

Nicu Buculei nicubunu at gmail.com
Fri Sep 7 05:38:10 UTC 2012


On 09/07/2012 12:35 AM, Андрій Бондаренко wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Recently one of our participant asked me - could I upload photos with
> watermarks? He argues that he loose original versions (without
> watermarks) and  their removing demands to much time. What should I
> answer him? Are photos with watermarks (as theese
> <http://toolserver.org/~magnus/catscan_rewrite.php?language=commons&project=wikimedia&categories=Images_with_watermarks&negcats=Images+from+Wiki+Loves+Monuments+2012&ns[6]=1&ext_image_data=1&doit=1>)
> allowed?

I had a look at a few random images there and I can identify a few cases:
- real watermarks (didn't find any in the examples) are when a big 
watermark covers a large and important part of the image, making it 
unusable (think at the preview images from stock photography sites). 
those CAN'T be allowed;
- signatures, small watermarks in an unobtrusive part of the image (most 
of the time in a corner). I allow those but discourage them by 
explaining the uploaders that grace to our free license, anyone is 
allowed to remove them, so is useless;
- some photos have the date watermarked in a corner, this probably 
happened most of the time in-camera and are unintentional. I feel them 
annoying but harmless;
- i saw a few cases the name of an educational institution there. For 
those I would ask the uploader if the image is really free (it may be an 
internal policy to watermark everything at it may forbid derivatives).

So in conclusion I do not like watermarks, would alow some, would forbid 
some, would question further some. Case by case.

-- 
nicu :: http://nicubunu.ro :: http://nicubunu.blogspot.com




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