Commons talk:Picswiss

You are aware that Mr. Zumbühl himself has been uploading his images here? See User talk:Roland Zumbühl. He even quite often uploads larger versions than those displayed at his own web site. Lupo 23:33, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

No I wasn't. Thanks for pointing this out. Dake 21:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Image:Schilthorn.jpeg

Any idea where this came from? --Flominator (talk) 18:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The Picswiss images are not entirely free

The Picswiss images are not entirely free because the rules at http://www.picswiss.ch/preise.html prohibit the amplification of the images. I know that this does not make much sense because the pixels are only getting bigger but the image will not have more details, but still I think that this makes the use of the images more limited which is not allowed on Commons. Please note that I have not yet started a deletion request yet, because I wanted to here some opinions from you first. --ALE! ¿…? 12:50, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Mr. Zumbühl may have expressed his licensing in strange ways. German Wikipedians have had contact with him, and they've taken his answer as agreeing to GFDL-licensing the images on his website. (Personally, I rather have the feeling that that was more a Wikipedia-only permission. At en-WP I even once deleted a PicSwiss image I had uploaded myself because of that. But I don't think it matters in this case because:) Furthermore, Mr. Zumbühl himself has uploaded images from his own website under the GFDL (sometimes even in higher resolutions than found online). See above. Evidently, he is aware that GFDL-licensed material may also be used off-Wikipedia, and it seems to be OK with him.

Please also note that the statements of his own website are contradictory. His general contract (AGB) says "< 100kB, not to be used for commercial MMS or postcards", forbids resale, and also includes the "no-enlargement" restriction. His FAQ OTOH allows using his images (again, <100kB) for illustrating "private and commercial websites, Wikipedia articles, books, newspapers, magazines, brochures", including private mobile phones... And finally, the "prices" page has that "no enlargement" restriction again (and mentions files <120kB).

It's all very incongruent, but I think the intent was just to agree to GFDL licensing since he saw that he couldn't do much about other people (not Wikipedia!) taking his photos without his asking anyway. The no-enlargement restriction, couple with the phrase "Die picswiss-Bildqualität muss erhalten bleiben." and the next point in the AGB, (D.4) "Sinnentstellte oder diskriminierende Verwendung von picswiss-Bildern ist verboten." could be interpreted as his moral right to the integrity of the work.

Not a conclusive answer, I know, but maybe it is still of use. Lupo 16:21, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi all! I came here because I had the same concerns as ALE. Beside what you both noted, I do not agree that Mr. Zumbühl really put his pictures under GFDL in the first place:

1. He didn't use the word GFDL as well as any particular license name. He only said that he didn't see any problem with the Terms Of Use he had chosen for his site (see here and his FAQ). That means to me that he sticks to his ToU, not ours. However there are discrepancies between the GFDL and his ToU, as you both noted.
2. The fact that he doesn't see the contradictions between his ToU and the GFDL doesn't mean there aren't any, just that he failed to see them. Considering this, we should list those contradictions and ask him to agree explicitly that his pictures be resized or sold.
3. As for people reusing his work commercially, he does not agree with this. He just says that the bad image quality should keep this from happening (he uses the verb klauen – to steal) and that there isn't much he can do anyway. That doesn't really sound like GFDL... Commercial use is not allowed: it is technically prevented and forbidden where it remains probable (=> no commercial MMS).

This looks more like a WP-only license. This said, I'm commenting only on his former answer, based on a Google translation (sorry, my German is too rusty...). Lupo, you say that he has since uploaded pictures here and that he seems to grasp the GFDL implications regarding the use of his work off-WP. I'm glad to read this but I would prefer that he explicitly agrees that his pictures here be sold as MMS, or any other form he hasn't imagined yet, like a hi-res patchwork postcard made from the stitching of hundreds of his low-res pictures. — Xavier, 02:33, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to contact him directly. If you want some text translated into German, send me the English text via e-mail, and I'll send you back the German translation. But at least two times Mr. Zumbühl forgot to put a license tag on his images, we corrected that, and he explicitly approved of this and thanked us for doing so: User talk:Roland Zumbühl#Image:Naturschutzgebiet-Liesberg.jpg and User talk:Roland Zumbühl#Image:Burg-im-Leimental.jpg. Lupo 08:43, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

License migration

Per the discussion at Commons talk:License Migration Task Force#Help needed, I've modified the {{Information Picswiss}} template to mark files tagged with as eligible for relicensing unless explicitly marked otherwise. However, it would be best if someone involved with this project could contact Mr. Zumbühl himself and ask if he'd be willing to release these files explicitly under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license in addition to the current GFDL license. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 01:21, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

German version

I added a German version of the project (Commons:Picswiss/de) and the template (Template:Picswiss/de). --Leyo 19:23, 26 July 2010 (UTC)