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Martin Wynne
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Simon Dismore
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Re: for Tim

Unread post by Simon Dismore »

Nice catch Martin!

Likewise, the only screenshot in Help and Manual's Wikipedia entry is from v5.

At present the new v7 screenshots page is labelled © Copyright 2015 EC Software GmbH, all rights reserved. If EC Software want Wikipedia's article to show off the product, they need to license at least some screenshots for unrestricted re-use (e.g. Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0). Frankly I can't see any reason for a niche software house to copyright their screenshots—if anyone disagrees, I've started a thread on the Off-topic board and would be very interested to hear counter-arguments.
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Tim Green
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Re: for Tim

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Martin,

Thanks, updated.
At present the new v7 screenshots page is labelled © Copyright 2015 EC Software GmbH, all rights reserved.
That's just standard legalese for all pages. We'd never complain about the use of a screenshot in WikiPedia. We don't ever edit our WikePedia entries ourselves, however. Someone else will have to do that...
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Simon Dismore
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Re: for Tim

Unread post by Simon Dismore »

Tim Green wrote:We'd never complain about the use of a screenshot in WikiPedia.
Hi Tim, Wikipedia's approach is to delete all copyright violations on sight—without waiting for a complaint—and there's a long-established set of rules for using copyright material. Apologies for not making this clear earlier.

The bottom line is that Wikipedia contributors who want to add copyright images must jump through hoops (see background below) which are time-consuming and result in either low-resolution versions or the editors "outing" themselves to copyright holders. Few people are prepared to take such effort to help a commercial entity improve their article. After all, the reasoning goes, if a company wants to allow re-use of images they can just put a copyright release on their website. This is why there are so few good screenshots in Wikipedia.

If EC Software wants to have a better Wikipedia article than MadCap or RoboHelp, it would help to license Help & Manual's UI with an unambiguous (and versioned, e.g. cc-by-sa-4.0) copyright release. Second best would be for you to upload screenshots to Wikimedia commons and release copyright there. It would also be helpful to get the suite reviewed by reliable sources, as MadCap did with PC Advisor, PC World, TechWhirl, etc.

Good luck!
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Background: Summary of steps for using copyright images on Wikipedia
  • Either Fair use
  • Find a screenshot that: can be deemed essential for understanding the article, can't be substituted for by a free image, and doesn't contain third party copyright text or images.
  • Reduce the image to <160,000 pixels and upload it.
  • For each article where the screenshot is used. add a non-free media rationale.
    Or Permission confirmed by owner
  • Find a screenshot (can be any size).
  • Contact the copyright and ask them to send an email to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org granting permission using a formal Declaration of consent.
  • Upload the screenshot and tag it to prevent it from being deleted before copyright has been reviewed. There's a ticket system called OTRS for tracking requests: currently there's a backlog of about four days to check copyright emails.
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