Panning photo of Nicolas Sarkozy at a political rallye in Toulouse
Some months ago, I was asked permission to reuse one of my photos of Nicolas Sarkozy, the new French President, that I had taken during his rallye in Toulouse. The photo was printed on the cover of a newsletter issued by think tank in London called the Stockholm Network. They contacted me via flickr but I told them to credit me via Wikimedia Commons instead, where the photos also were.
I am now being contacted by someone working for Community Connection News Magazine, “a minority print media publication company based out of Milwaukee, WI and serving the tri-state area” who’s interested in a picture of school bus from Québec.
School bus in Québec
The lady emailed me through flickr and asked permission to use photos from my gallery there. She was quite astonished when I told her about Wikimedia Commons offering more than 1.8 million free media files.
Eventually, flickr may help Commons to get some attention. Teachers and librarians, who are always very doubtful about Wikipedia, usually love the idea of a free media repository where they can pick media for their courses or to where they can send their students without risking that they copy/paste articles full of errors. Commons may be the next coolest project, as soon as developers find the time to improve its usability to make it more user-friendly and more “2.0“.
Photo gallery
unfoldscience: scientific communication
Journal en français
“as soon as developers find the time to improve its usability to make it more user-friendly”
As someone who has uploaded many photos Commons, I can say that this is it biggest drawback. While uploading is pretty easy, the organization and categorization systems are arcane, and pale in comparison to commercial offerings like Flickr and Picasa. Hopefully this changes sometime soon!
As RMS mentions, the phrase ‘free media files’ make me cringe as it takes a surprising amount of time to explain the difference between ‘free’ media files like PD ones and ‘free as in freedom’ media files.