Your author gallery
The new author image feature is going well, with 749 author images added so far. That's enough to introduce your author gallery! (Or see mine.)
posted by Tim at 11:25 AM
posted by Tim at 11:25 AM
17 Comments:
Tim, I checked your author gallery. Where's Clarah?
alibrarian
Tole: Pictures on the net vary greatly in their legality. What you do with a picture also matters--that is, something that might be considered "fair use" in an academic context is not necessarily so on LibraryThing. Read the policy, but, essentially, you can only post things that are public domain, have a certain sort of "copyleft" license or are specifically released to LibraryThing.
Adding to Tim's comment: Just because it's on Wikipedia doesn't mean you can copy it! Wikipedia has a rather overbroad idea of what constitutes "fair use" (and, of course, what might be "fair use" for a non-profit like Wikipedia might not be so for LT). I've seen a lot of images on Wikipedia that I think they have used improperly.
If you see an image that you want to use, check the site you find it on for copyright information. Also, be aware that many museums, while they don't claim copyright in works that they own, do have user fees.
I'm seeing the following frequent issues in uploaded images:
1. Copyright information with no indication of permission being given.
2. No credit given.
3. Assumption that if it's on Wikipedia, it's okay to use. (I think this statement in the FAQ - In general, LibraryThing follows the Wikipedia model for image use. - may contribute to the problem.)
4. Misunderstanding of what constitutes "promotional use".
I'm not sure how much clearer you can be - your FAQ seemed clear to me - but it's evident that not everyone is grasping what's okay and what isn't.
Another problem that does not relate to which pictures are uploaded is the frequency of duplication. This is, I think, attributable to the fact that the photo does not appear immediately after being uploaded, and, in fact, often does not appear even after the page is refreshed a few times.
Alas Clarah's not in my library. I don't read Portuguese. I just found her picture searching for authors on Flickr.
Lilithcat: I think it's hard to say it better. Mostly, these are complex and tricky issues, and ignorance is pretty widespread. I think there's little to be done than to knock stuff down from time to time, but I'll look into tightening it. Also, I'm wary of being *too* definitive. I'm not a lawyer and not giving legal advice.
Copyright issues aside for the moment, I love the new feature. What fun to see pictures of some of my book's authors!
Thanks, again, for the great job you're doing, Tim.
I discovered this feature yesterday while cataloguing books. I love it. I hardly recognized any of the authors. Extremely fun.
Hm. I bought a gift account for my sister. Neither of us know how to upgrade her account using her gift account passcode. Nor do we know how to find help on this subject...
Many authors would love to have their pictures shown with their list of books at LibraryThing for the sake of publicity. It might be a good idea for you to post messages at websites of authors' organizations and other sites where published authors gather, inviting them to upload their own or to send you the URL from which they can be obtained. (And to enter any of their books that nobody here happens to own.) This would also bring new users to LT -- many authors probably don't know about it.
If you do this, though, you'd need to specify LT's policy on e-books, if there is one -- there are lots of authors of e-books looking for Web publicity.
It is fun and revealing to see the author's photos and pictures. I have other pictures of 19th century authors myself but am not sure of the provenance (copyright) so am not sending them on.
I do have several good ones of earlier women writers (pre-French revolution) where I knownthe copyright is out so when I have time I'll put them on too.
Andrew: You can upgrade it here
http://www.librarything.com/gift.php
Or email Abigail@librarything.com to help you out.
http://creativecommons.org/
Go to the above site to learn about how the Creative Commons Organization is involved in distributing authorized content with protection for both the author and the consumer of said content.
Yes, copyright law is very complex. Yet, let us hope that all author's will share at least one picture with the public.
I've developed a game from my personal author gallery. When a new author is pictured, I try to try to guess who it is. The next time I log on, I try to guess who all of the pictured authors are. If an author is deleted from the gallery, I try to guess who's gone. It's kind of like the game called Memory! :-) What fun!
I'm confused. I was adding author's to my gallery. I had all the correct information and permissions, but now they are gone. Please explain. Was I doing something wrong?
never mind... got my answer
I think the author gallery feature is cool, but just to throw in a different perspective, what do you think of the arguments in this Guardian commentary: Frances Wilson calls for the abolition of author photographs?
I think author photographs are pretty perfidious, actually. John Updike says much of the same in his recent essay responding to Kevin Kelley...
Post a Comment
<< Home