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Revision as of 09:53, 14 November 2007

Images from bollywoodblog

There is something wrong about all these images. The license summary claims that OTRS has received permission from the blog owners releasing these pics on CC-3. But the blog itself tells a different story. This image for example, is taken from here. Now, if we scroll all the way to the bottom of that page, the blog tells us -

which forbids commercial use. Also note that many of the pics are cropped derivatives of the original. Can somebody here explain whats going on? Or should all these pics be deleted? Sarvagnya 09:13, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

And oh, btw.. some of them have watermarks on them. Atleast those can be speedied I guess. Sarvagnya 09:22, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I know this issue was brought up before. I thought the user was Hindu Boar but I can't find that name. I will continue searching as I swear this was resolved. spryde | talk 12:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

and I was right... spryde | talk 12:17, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

• If some have watermarks then they should be deleted. In my view, if any are provably not the copyright of the blog (i.e. simple crops of a non-PD image) then all should be removed as not having a trustworthy free license. Guy (Help!) 12:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

This has been questioned many times -yes I can confirm that I contacted the director of caledonian publishing and received permission . He actually said "They would be delighted to help wikipedia" and if you check the system verification you'll see we are permitted to use these images under 3.0. PLease confirm with User:Videmus Omnia or User:Riana who overlooked it. And yes we are trying to avoid watermarked images where possible. Under this license we are indeed permitted to crop images and use commercially. Why am I not surprised Sarvagnya is the editor concerned here? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 12:26, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Ahh yes it was Spyde who saw this last time. This is turning into a joke . ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 12:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

That is your opinion Guy but if you spoke to the director of Caledonian publishing who owns that site you would think differently. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 12:42, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

• You might care to read it a b it more carefully. What I said was, watermarked images should go (existing policy), and if we find any that are provably not the copyright of the blog then we'd have to delete them all because the claim of copyright ownership would lose credibility. Nobody's disputing that the blog owners have sent the release, the question is whether the rights are, in every case, theirs to release, and if not, what to do about it. Guy (Help!) 18:28, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Please check the OTRS system here which will indeed confirm this 3.0 agreement is legal ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 12:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC) Actually on the Bollywood site there is clear confirmation that wikipedia is permitted to use the images under a 3.0 license and in doing so realises it is allowing them to be used commercially on other sites or whatever for all. Admin made certain this was correct before finalising it. Now would you like the email address of the director to confirm this yourself? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 12:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't like seeing this brought up repeatedly, it implies I don't know what I'm doing ;) The permissions checks out completely - I did a lot of back-and-forthing to get it all right, mainly because it just seemed frankly a little unbelievable at first that they would be so generous. But we got the all clear. WRT the site notice - I also e-mailed them about this, explaining that they couldn't license one way for us and one way for everyone else, it had to be all or nothing. They offered to take off the site notice about the nc licensing, which sounded agreeable to me and I OK-ed it. The fact that they have not done so is not my/our responsibility. They understand that a cc-by-3.0 license means that their images may appear throughout the internet (and further afield) due to mirroring. They understand that it means derivatives can be made (including the removal of watermarks). They understand it means that the images may be used in a commercial manner. I have gone through all this with them. I don't know what else to do short of actually reproducing their e-mail here, which I'd rather not do, and I'd also rather not see this pop up every few weeks. ~ Riana ⁂ 19:06, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

And regarding JzG's question (which is perfectly legitimate and I had the same issue at the beginning) - please, please use some judgement when uploading from the blog - obviously professional images are probably not created by them... ~ Riana ⁂ 19:18, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

First off, it is probably your fault if this has come up as often as you say it has. After the first discussion, you could very well have updated that category page with a FAQ link to the discussion. All image summaries also should have been updated with a link to the discussion which addressed these 'FAQs'. Of course, its never too late and you can do it even now.

Having said that, your response raises more questions. Especially, when you say that 'professional' looking photos are most probably not theirs. To me many of the photos look professional. And if they're claiming copyright over even one work which is not theirs, then their very credibility is suspect, imo. in other words, is there reasonable evidence that they're themselves not hawking stolen goods? i think this is a pertinent question to ask because this source is an obscure source and we know nothing of their credentials. Who was the photographer of all these pics, for example? bollywoodblog isnt exactly Time magazine. They're not well known for anything and we dont have to take their word at face value.

Furthermore, you say you/we are not responsible for them not changing the licensing info on their site. Can somebody confirm that we can indeed wash our hands off it so easily? Do CC copyright policies allow a work to be simultaneously licensed differently by the creator of the work? Is it not anamolous? Also what if tommorrow they deny the veracity of your email conversations and haul us up for cpvio. Considering how easy it is to spoof emails and email addresses, isnt the hard coded license on the site itself more overwhelming and conclusive proof? Should we be taking these pics down until such a time as they change the info on their site? We obviously cant have them make us look like we're stealing from them!

I dont mean to nitpick here, but given how seriously wikipedia takes cpvios and also how sanctimonious it is about such things, I feel we shouldnt go along with deals like this unless everything is watertight and there are absolutely no loopholes.

Also, why cant I see a copy of the permission which lies with the OTRS? Whats so secret about it that it cant be put out in the open? Sarvagnya 20:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

In US Copyright law, the owner of IP can license the IP anyway they see fit to whomever they see fit (even if the licenses make no sense taken together). And OTRS is a private tracking system to protect privacy and provide official communication channels. spryde | talk 20:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised I have to explain the difference between professional and amateur photography here, but OK. This is a professional photograph. This is an amateur one. This is an obvious screen-cap. This is an amateur. I am going to mark all the obviously professional ones I can find for speedy deletion. I can contact their webmaster again - it will be the 5th time I am doing so, please do not imagine that I'm sitting on my hands here - about the sitenotice. The blog does not have the right to onlicence copyrighted images, quite plainly, under CC. Which is why people should exercise judgement.

The deal is watertight unless you bargain with people's stupidity. Which I should have, I guess. People - only the shitty amateur shots are to be uploaded, not these. The blog does take its own pictures but nowhere does it guarantee that all its pictures are taken by them. Exercise some judgement.

And there is a reason OTRS communications are private. If you doubt my word any of the other hundreds of users with OTRS access could verify it for you. ~ Riana ⁂ 22:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Wait... I thought all the images from bollywood blog were owned by them? The license text we are using states, "All photographs used by this site are exclusively created by their own photographers based in Mumbai." If this is not the case, we are going to have to revisit this issue. I think we'd need to require evidence for each image that it is owned by bollywoodblog and this is going to be a huge pain in the behind. I know Blofeld has gone substantially out of his way wrt this whole matter and I have the utmost respect for him and for Riana, but I do note that we are claiming all the images they use are owned by them. --Yamla 23:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

We are not claiming that - they are :) I asked Daniel to delete all the images I marked as obvious copyvios and he kindly agreed. I think that all we need is for people to exercise a little judgement when uploading. Either that - or scrap the whole deal, because there are too many loopholes which we are willing to fill but they are not. ~ Riana ⁂ 23:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Right, but if they are claiming that they own all the images and we know they don't, we can't use any of their images. We could never be sure. Note that every time I tried searching for duplicate images, the only duplicates I found were used on other sites after bollywoodblog had posted them. --Yamla 23:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

"Right, but if they are claiming that they own all the images and we know they don't, we can't use any of their images." - Precisely my point. And Guy's too, if I've understood him correctly.

"....Either that - or scrap the whole deal,..." - I say, scrap it. Most if not all the images are obvious copyvios and several of them have ugly watermarks on them. Misplaced Pages aint no billboard.

Also Riana, I appreciate that you've taken a lot of pains with this thing, but please dont make it sound like its my fault that I brought this up. Nearly 40 cpvios have already been deleted as a result of this discussion, so dont hold it against me. This deal leaves several questions unanswered and I dont know of any useful precedent either. And imo, this deal will set a bad precedent. Frankly, I strongly suspect that the blog is hawking stolen stuff and we shouldnt be so eager to play into their hands and give them free advertising space on wikipedia. Sarvagnya 22:49, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

How many of the images were confirmed as not belonging to bollywoodblog? Have we definitely found some that didn't? Have we found a lot? Riana and especially Blofeld have already put extensive effort into this. I know I was a huge pain in the behind for Blofeld on this matter and he remained civil and explained the deal. I'd hate to see this thrown away if we are still just speculating that some of the images aren't actually owned by the site. On the other hand, if it turns out that they don't own many of the images, I think we really have to just scrap the whole deal. I mean, unless the images they own are clearly marked (and Riana, I disagree that this is obvious just by looking at the pictures, unfortunately). --Yamla 04:12, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The contention that any picture which appears to look professional has to be under copyright strikes me personally as frankly ludicrous. Can any of us know that the blog makers aren't capable of producing professional looking photos? I also have to question whether this blog would be stupid enough to give us a license to reproduce their pictures if they didn't themselves own them, as that would make them an accessory or party to several copyright violations themselves. Also, I used to work in patents and copyrights and know that they are far from being consistent over national borders, so it could be that the patent/copyright only holds within a given country. Having said all that, there does seem to me to be some serious dispute here, well-founded or not, I can't be certain myself. Maybe it would be a good idea to have the wikipedia legal office look into it. They probably have the people whose final judgement in the matter would be most acceptable to everybody. John Carter 15:24, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Right I've just speedied about 10 or so images which are questionable as they are either screenshots or promotional shots or watermarked the remaining are legitimate. This site is owned by Caledonian publishing , a company worth $100 millions of dollars . They employ an agency of photogtaphers based in Mumbai which deal primarily with the Bollywood film industry. Excluding screenshots and obvious promo photos this agreement is valid ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 16:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC) I seriously doubt the owner of this company would state that they employ hundreds of photographers based in Mumbai if they didn't. While it may appear to be a lousy blog I have contacted the owner of the site and the publishing company many times and this has been confirmed.

Update

OK. There were a 169 or so images in this category when I first brought this up on AN. Now I see that there are a 117. That's 52 images gone and none of them tagged by me. Now Blof, you say you've purged it of all the dubious ones. Well, its now time to walk the talk.

• This pic is an obvious screengrab. Do you deny it?

• This pic - again looks like a screengrab. I dont watch Hindi/Urdu movies or I could tell you which movie it was. Maybe Shahid will be able to help you there.

• This one is an obvious screengrab from Voice of India - a television show whose rights when I last heard rest with a certain Mr. Rupert Murdoch. Do you have anything to say?

• This pic is a cropped screengrab of the same frame of the same show on the same day at the same time. Proof is here. Dont be fooled by the ugly bblog watermark, just follow the link on bblog and read what they've written. Again, unless your 100 million pound bootleggers bought Rupert Murdoch for a song, the rights rest with Star TV India.

• This one is of Miss Shilpa Shetty walking the ramp at the Lakme Fashion week, probably the biggest such event in India. If I were to put my money, I'd put it on Lakme India to own the rights. Give me a very good explanation if you feel otherwise.

Those were the more or less glaring copyvios. Now lets examine one that raises more questions and concern than any of the rest.

• This one supposedly taken from here. But then whats this? Desifans claims copyrights over the work too. Check out the bottom of their page. Oh.. now did you point out to me that the desifans ver was a scaled down version of the bollywoodblog one and therefore the bollywoodblog pic was the original? Well then, explain this from "thebollywoodzone" who even have their own logo/watermark on the pic. The bollywoodblog version of the pic is clearly a cropped version of the "thebollywoodzone" pic. Yes? Or no? If yes, it raises more questions and concerns. If bollywoodblog can plagiarize from Rupert Murdoch and the producer of Laaga_Chunari_Mein_Daag and even a nameless, faceless blog, how are you so sure that they're spending their millions on hiring photographers and taking their own pics?

What does the CEO of your million pound company take us for? Idiots? What do you take me for? A fool? All I have been asking this past week of you and your friends is to use RS sources and not to use copyvio images and in return I get grief and more grief on ANI. The amount of bad faith is apalling and doesnt behove an editor of your standing.

Anyway, I turn to the rest here. Can anybody now say with conviction that bollywoodblog is not hawking stolen stuff? Is there any evidence that even one of the images on their site is genuinely theirs? Because, I'm not taking their word for it. Not anymore. In fact, if people here feel that it has been established by now that they're lying and bootlegging stuff, I am perhaps even within my rights to call for a blacklist on them. We've given them enough free publicity. Sarvagnya 04:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

As per Riana's indications, this image of Rakhi Sawant is a professional photograph, like all the deleted screenshots are, so it obviously should be deleted too. That's why it is not watermarked with bollywoodbolg's logo (just like all the screenshots aren't). It's the same case. There is nothing renewed here. Just like all the deleted screenshots belong to their respective production companies, this one belongs to the indicated original site, and has to be deleted. It should have been deleted before, because it's clearly a professional image. Now, if an amateur photograph of bollywoodblog was found on thebollywoodzone, it would be another case. Shahid • 04:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The screenshots arent watermarked? Look again! and again this time with your eyes open. Sarvagnya 04:37, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Please calm yourself. I'm not talking about these screenshots, and it doesn't matter if they are watermarked or not. I said and repeat, and look with more observation please: "if an amateur photograph of bollywoodblog was found on thebollywoodzone (or anywhere), it would be another case." These are clearly not amateur photos... They're professional screenshots. Bye bye Shahid • 04:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Removing watermarks...

... is not particularly difficult for someone skilled with graphics. This is not a problem.

The problem is that people are uploading images willy-nilly, despite it being obvious that they are not created by the blog. Yesterday I deleted an image of Asha Bhosle from Commons. It is a very well known image and one that is in wide circulation. How can people reasonably think that this is freely licensed?

All I ask is that we exercise some judgement when using these images.

As an update someone from Caledonian Publishing contacted me yesterday saying that their webmaster was on holiday for Deepavali, but would fix the sitenotice once they returned.

Thoughts, comments? And everyone calm down - it's really not the end of the world :) ~ Riana ⁂ 05:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

It boils down to this. There are three kinds of images on that site. 1) Obvious bootlegs from TV, movies, music videos etc.,. 2) What you call "professional" photographs 3) What you call "amateur" photographs. And then we have the problem of the licenses not matching.. which you say will be taken care of in a day or two. Now, Yamla(was it?) felt and I also feel that except in some cases, the "amateur" and "professional" ones are hardly discernable. Surely you dont mean all images that are from a photoshoot are "professional" and the ones that are from a cocktail party are "amateur"! Even if it was discernable for you, how do you expect the random well meaning newbie to exercise caution? How in the first place is a newbie even supposed to know of this 50kb discussion and its conclusions? Or are you suggesting that we keep following newbies with mops everywhere? How would we even know? What happens if newbies upload a pic from this blog but dont put it under this category? How would we find out? Or are you suggesting that we have a showdown like this once every year or so and purge the bad ones. Clearly thats not workable. And given the site's lack of professionalism and utter disregard for copyrights of others, I see absolutely no reason we should not scrap this deal. We know for sure that an overwhelming percentage of the images over which they claim copyright is bootlegged. How then do we assume good faith with them? I say again, nuke them all and blacklist this site (ie., any uploads from this site should be speedied on sight. we've wasted enough time with them). Sarvagnya 05:31, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree to this, very reluctantly as I know Ernst has done a great deal of hard work getting this up. But this does not reflect badly upon Ernst or other uploaders of these images at all, IMO - it's just that the blog has not been honest with us from the start.

Other comments are welcome. If you have a way of solving this I welcome it, but I don't think it's really possible. ~ Riana ⁂ 05:40, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh.. it surely doesnt reflect poorly on Ernst or anybody else. It is not that Ernst uploaded these that disappoints me.. I understand that it was an honest mistake. It is just that he was quick to pounce on me and carry on a tirade that shows no signs of topping simply because I questioned these images that disappoints me. I've been tagging images for as long as I can remember and its amazing that Blofeld simply concluded that I was either out to get him or acting in bad faith. And talking of the logistics here, tell me, how would you know if somebody uploaded an image from this blog that you deleted this morning? Or if they uploaded not one, but a hundred more from this blog? If we allowed it, we're sure to get swamped with blatant and obvious copyvios in no time. Sarvagnya 05:49, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

One could blacklist the site if this turns out to be a problem. Movies/actors articles will always have copyvios, we'll just have to deal with it as it happens. ~ Riana ⁂ 05:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, just as blogs and random sites arent RS for text, they shouldnt be RS for images either... unless they take the pains to prove their RS-ness to us or in the most exceptional circumstances. As for blacklist, bollywoodblog has already wasted enough of our time and is a fit case to be blacklisted. There is nothing we stand to lose. Sarvagnya 05:56, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, at least two people have requested that I take a look at this thread and weigh in, so here goes. I have also reviewed comments left on my talk page, this whole thread, a lot of the other ANI thread (as far as the images were concerned), and this thread and this later thread at VO's talk page

First, I view the the inconsistent licenses as a nonissue. If someone licenses their images under multiple licenses, the broadest known license would govern. The license on the website is noncommercial, but since we are aware of a broader (commercial) license, we are not limited by the noncommercial one. They are free to keep the narrower license on their website if they want to discourage people from reusing their content, but it doesn't limit us.

Second, and more important at the moment, this blog doesn't pass the smell test and my gut tells me we've been had. Looking back at the website at archive.org, I am struck by the unprofessional nature of bollywoodblog.com. It started with two posts by Davendra, with no fanfare, no "about us" page, and no mention of corporate sponsorship. And two obviously stolen images. Browsing forward, it appears that most, if not all, of the early images belonged to other people.

Continuing on this track, I should clarify that this blog has nothing to do with Caledonian Publishing, the major Scottish newspaper publisher that was acquired by Scottish TV (SMG plc) about 10 years ago. Instead, Davendra appears to be connected with something called "Caledonian Capital Partners Limited", and that appears to be a one-man website design company. Look at these links:

Directors of Caledonian Capital
Look familiar?
Historic About us page
"Website" of Caledonian Publishing
LinkedIn profile with a total of SEVEN connections
The "portfolio" linked from the LinkedIn profile

The domain names BOLLYWOODBLOG.COM, CALEDONIANCAPITAL.COM and CALEDONIANPUBLISHING.COM are all registered through domainsbyproxy.com, an anonymous intermediary registrar -- hardly what you would expect from a major limited company.

Also, you would think a director of a huge company like that would have more than 9 google hits, but Davendra does not.

We have these statements from Davendra, sent to Blofeld: "Our photographers are on the ground in Mumbai and all pictures to Bollywoodblog are exclusive to Bollywoodblog" and "Our pictures are unique and copyright is owned by Bollywoodblog." Clearly, these statements are false. Why would Davendra make such sweeping statements knowing that a substantial chunk were posted from other sources?

Based on all of the above, I would wager that the blog has no photographers or exclusive images, and that all of the images on the blog site belong to other people. So unless somebody has compelling evidence to the contrary, they should all be speedied as copyvios and the site should be blacklisted. -- But|seriously|folks  09:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)