At a time when celebrities typically employ a team of professionals to control their images, Wikipedia is a place where chaos rules.
(From The New York Times)
The story "Wikipedia may be a font of facts, but it's a desert for photos" published July 20, 2009 at 2:37 PM is no longer available on CNET News.
I can understand Wiki wanting to make the pictures reusable to the people viewing the articles, or students making a school report. I could understand the photographers saying "pictures can only be used in articles quoting Wikipedia" or something to that effect. Perhaps the rule should be that photos cannot be used commercially without the photographers permission. This would allow students and nonprofits to use the pictures. As for the British National Portrait Gallery, the word A$$hole comes to mind. God forbid a publicly funded gallery should come to the aid of the public. Perhaps the British government should take a closer look at their funding.....oh, sorry, I forgot they're having the public take a closer look at the government's funding...
The bottom line is if celebrities and photographers want good photos on Wikipedia, there is a clear and easy way for them to do so. If they choose not to, that is their prerogative. But they shouldn't then blame Wikipedia for having bad photos.
What's next, the RIAA complaining that Wikipedia is using bad quality song samples?
Images that are taken by ammeters are, by wiki standards, non-biased, and stay true to life. I can understand why there would be such bad photos on wikipedia: it is because they stay true to real life!
For example, if you go to, lets say, Angelina Jolie's official webpage, of course you are going to get a photoshoped image of her. I actually appreciate that wikipedia uses images that must follow strict rules, as a way to remove bias from the images they hold.
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I could understand the photographers saying "pictures can only be used in articles quoting Wikipedia" or something to that effect.
Perhaps the rule should be that photos cannot be used commercially without the photographers permission. This would allow students and nonprofits to use the pictures.
As for the British National Portrait Gallery, the word A$$hole comes to mind. God forbid a publicly funded gallery should come to the aid of the public. Perhaps the British government should take a closer look at their funding.....oh, sorry, I forgot they're having the public take a closer look at the government's funding...
What's next, the RIAA complaining that Wikipedia is using bad quality song samples?
For example, if you go to, lets say, Angelina Jolie's official webpage, of course you are going to get a photoshoped image of her. I actually appreciate that wikipedia uses images that must follow strict rules, as a way to remove bias from the images they hold.