Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-10-12/In the news

International Olympics Committee issues legal threat over Creative Commons photography
Wikipedia may be the key link in the recent news story of photographer Richard Giles, who got a legal threat from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over licensing his images from the Beijing Olympics under Creative Commons licenses. Giles explains the situation on his blog:

"It turns out that my Usain Bolt photo was being used by a book shop in the UK to advertise the launch of the Guinness Book of Records 2010. This was being done without my knowledge, and as they pointed out, in breach of the license granted on the Olympic ticket."

The Usain Bolt photo was the only one of 293 in the set on Flickr that was licensed with a ShareAlike license (allowing commercial use) rather than a non-commercial license, and Giles had relicensed that particular photo at the request of another Flickrite so that it could be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and used on Wikipedia. Wikipedia, which uses the image prominently, may be where that UK merchant found it.

Giles reports that the IOC may only object to licensing that allows commercial use. Depending on what the IOC says in response to his request for clarification, Giles may be changing the license on the Usain Bolt photo and asking the UK merchant to stop using it. However, it is Wikimedia Commons policy to retain photos from Flickr that were originally obtained under a free license, even if the license on Flickr is subsequently changed. Wikimedia Commons has hundreds of other photos from the Beijing Olympics by other photographers, all of which are licensed to permit commercial use.

Wikipedia at Yale
An interview with Jimmy Wales was published this week in the Yale Daily News, following his visit and talk at Yale last week.

Also at Yale, a real-life contest – the bladderball game traditionally played at Yale – turned into a Wikipedia edit war, as chronicled by the Yale Daily News.

Briefly

 * The Wikimedia Strategy Project's Barry Newstead blogged about the strategy project on harvardbusiness.org
 * Conservapedia has launched the "Conservapedia Bible project," a project to translate the Bible to correct for perceived liberal bias in existing translations. A wide variety of news sources picked up on the story, including the Globe and Mail and the Huffington Post.
 * The Green Tea II oriental restaurant in Framingham, Massachusetts once offered Wikipedia-flavored beef brisket as seen on page 4, item #C14 of their menu. The Telegraph ' s recent story was tempered with sad news that the restaurant has closed.